UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


(TU   N'ES   PLUS   RIENI) 
BY 

RENE!  BOYLESVE 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  FRENCH 

BY 
LOUISE    SEYMOUR   HOUGHTON 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1918 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

Published  May,  1918 


?a 

%  6  0  3 
W/tlE 


TO U  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


335635 


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JT  ROM  the  swoon  into  which  the  sudden, 
agonizing  shock  had  thrown  her,  her  soul  es- 
caped, shook  itself  free,  as  the  mind  shakes  off 
a  nightmare.  There  is  first  a  sensation  of  re- 
lief from  discomfort,  then  a  cheering  sense  of 
safety,  and  one  slips  contentedly  into  a  half- 
slumber.  Then  it  all  begins  again,  for  one  no 
longer  believes  that  it  answers  to  any  reality. 

Was  she  still  asleep  ?  Was  it  memory,  was 
it  imagination  that  unrolled  before  her  vision 
pictures  of  the  past  which  yet  her  musings 
had  never  till  then  evoked,  and  which  sud- 
denly presented  themselves  with  annoying 
vividness  ?  There  were  whisperings,  mur- 
muring voices  in  the  next  room.  She  was 
aware  of  them,  yet  to  the  unwonted  sounds 
she  paid  no  attention;  the  gentle,  persistent 
pressure  of  an  invisible  hand  turned  back  her 
thoughts  to  days  gone  by. 

A  hushed  step  upon  the  carpet,  a  finger 
questioning  her  pulse,  no  more  disturbed  her 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


than  the  familiar  cry  of  the  huckster  in  the 
street.  She  did  not  wonder:  "What,  am  I  ill? 
Are  they  anxious  about  me  ?  Why  am  I  in 
bed,  in  broad  daylight,  I  so  young,  so  un- 
used to  illness  of  any  kind  ?"  She  was  recall- 
ing a  certain  time,  days  that  seemed  far  re- 
mote, a  period  of  her  life  that  seemed  to  have 
been  acted  before  her  eyes,  like  a  play  in  the 
theatre. 

A  summer  month  of  one  of  the  previous 
years.  She  saw  again  the  last  days  in  her 
suburban  home,  just  outside  of  Paris,  the 
sloping  garden  and  the  vista  through  the 
leafage  over  far-distant  hills,  splendid  and 
ethereal.  Every  one  was  getting  ready  for 
the  summer  holiday;  some  of  the  men  were 
going  to  the  training-camps.  What  a  world 
of  talk !  What  discussions  with  friends  who 
had  been  invited  to  the  country  for  an  after- 
noon of  farewells !  They  were  a  world  by 
themselves — young,  alert,  fond  of  pleasure, 
and  of  all  things  beautiful  and  adventurous, 
care-free,  and  charming.  The  oldest  of  the 
men  was  M.  de  la  Villaumer,  whose  hair  was 
beginning  to  turn  gray,  but  who  enjoyed 

[2] 


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himself  only  among  kindly  faces.  Several 
were  artists — musicians  or  painters.  They 
loved  the  beautiful  things  of  life  and  that  life 
of  the  intellect  which  easily  adapts  itself  to 
the  beautiful.  Love  was  king  in  their  circle, 
a  love  rather  kindly  than  passionate,  whose 
ravages  they  had  learned  how  to  conceal. 
Yet  many  admirable  couples  were  found 
among  them.  Odette  Jacquelin  and  her  hus- 
band were  always  cited  as  the  most  en- 
amoured pair  of  the  group.  After  them  came 
Clotilde  and  George  Awogade,  who  cooed 
like  turtle-doves,  but  were  lovers  only  "for 
a  curtain-raiser,"  it  used  to  be  said.  Rose 
Misson,  whom  they  called  "good  Rose," 
Simone  de  Prans,  Germaine  Le  Gault,  were 
all  women  who  adored  their  husbands  and 
asked  for  no  other  happiness,  having  no  idea 
of  anything  else  than  happiness. 

Why,  they  used  to  ask,  was  Jean  Jacquelin 
an  officer  of  reserves  ?  What  was  the  sense  of 
that  biennial  war-game  for  a  chap  who  had 
nothing  military  in  him,  whether  by  tradi- 
tion, education,  or  belief  ?  The  old  father  had 
made  a  point  of  it,  because  he  held  to  the 

[3] 


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ineradicable  prejudices  of  his  time.  As  for 
Jean  himself,  he  made  light  of  it;  he  was  a 
young  fellow  well  on  the  way  to  make  a  for- 
tune and  give  Odette  all  the  luxuries  that  in 
their  circle  were  considered  not  superfluities, 
but  things  indispensable.  It  never  occurred 
to  him  that  any  other  purpose  could  seri- 
ously occupy  a  man's  mind.  Without  enter- 
ing into  the  thousand  and  one  interests  of 
certain  of  his  more  cultivated  friends  who 
were  given  to  reasoning  and  theorizing,  he 
simply  found  that  the  uniform  of  a  sublieu- 
tenant was  becoming,  and  that,  when  he  was 
obliged  to  wear  it,  it  was  simply  an  opportu- 
nity to  make  himself  fit;  physical  fatigue 
was  nothing  to  him;  he  might  be  inclined  to 
think  the  Grand  Manoeuvres  a  superannu- 
ated exercise;  he  might  even  smile  at  them 
and  amuse  himself  by  enumerating  the  blun- 
ders of  such  and  such  a  commander;  but 
something  always  kept  him  from  ever  mak- 
ing light  of  the  thing  itself.  For  that  matter, 
being  a  reserve  officer  was  perhaps  one  of 
the  many  whims  of  society,  but  it  was  what 
is  called  decent;  in  certain  circles  it  was  done. 

[4] 


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So  he  let  them  talk  and  harangue,  opposing 
no  arguments  but  continuing  to  be  a  reserve 
officer,  carrying  through  his  period  of  in- 
struction when  he  was  called. 

This  time  the  young  wife  had  gone  with 
him  as  far  as  Tours,  to  be  with  him  a  few 
hours  longer  and  after  that  to  receive  his 
letters  more  promptly.  How  long  the  time 
had  seemed,  all  alone  in  the  Hotel  de  1'Uni- 
vers !  And  yet  she  had  a  pretty  room !  She 
had  amused  herself  with  piquing  public  curi- 
osity on  the  Rue  Nationale,  with  her  little 
walking-suit  of  the  latest  cut,  and  her  simple 
canoe  hat — quite  the  "  Parisienne  on  a  hol- 
iday"— and  the  elegance  of  her  manners,  at 
once  independent  and  circumspect,  as  were 
all  her  ways.  It  was  generally  agreed  that 
she  was  pretty.  Who  was  not  asking  ques- 
tions about  her  in  the  hotel,  at  the  restau- 
rant ?  It  had  amused  her  to  see  a  family  of 
tourists  inventing  pretexts  for  changing 
places  at  their  small  table,  this  one  in  order 
to  face  her,  that  one  in  order  that  the 
grown-up  son  might  not  face  her.  And  how 
they  had  stared  at  her ! 


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Telegrams  had  come  from  the  sublieu- 
tenant. "Be  at  Pont-de- Piles  to-morrow, 
darling,"  or  "Ligueil,  such  a  day  for  lunch," 
or  "Loches,  Hotel  de  France,  after  breaking 
up."  And  she  had  sometimes  waited  a  long 
while  in  wayside  inns  or  beside  dusty  high- 
ways. 

Conversations  at  table  began  to  come 
back  to  her.  Every  one  had  been  talking  of 
the  manoeuvres,  discussing  the  names  of 
generals,  the  communes  that  were  being  oc- 
cupied. The  presence  of  the  President  of  the 
Republic  was  an  event  in  the  countryside. 
There  had  been  old  men  who  would  consent 
to  speak  of  nothing  nearer  than  1870;  others, 
of  fewer  years,  would  recall  the  magnificent 
condition  of  the  reconstituted  army  at  the 
time  of  Gambetta's  death,  or  at  the  period  of 
the  Schnaebele  affair,  when  the  country  was 
so  near  to  seeing  it  in  action.  A  politician  of 
the  neighborhood — not  more  stupid,  after 
all,  than  most  of  his  contemporaries — rubi- 
cund, his  eyes  bloodshot  at  the  end  of  dinner, 
had  fallen  foul  of  all  these  memories,  regrets, 
would-be  warlike  emotions,  and  turned 
[6] 


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them  upside  down  like  eggs  in  a  frying-pan. 
According  to  him,  war  was  the  scourge  of  by- 
gone ages.  France,  the  nation  of  progress, 
still  consented  to  carry  on  a  semblance  of  it, 
by  way  of  facilitating  necessary  transitions, 
but  it  was  a  mere  play  of  protocols,  a  final 
concession  to  the  past.  War  was  destructive; 
modern  society  was  interested  wholly  in  pro- 
duction; to  believe  in  war  was  to  turn  back 
the  clock  of  history.  For  that  matter,  every 
well-informed  person  was  aware  that  scien- 
tific means  of  destruction  had  become  such 
that  a  fratricidal  conflict  had  been  rendered 
impossible,  im-pos-si-ble !  One  must  be  an 
idiot  not  to  perceive  that  everything  would 
be  reduced  to  fragments  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye.  The  manoeuvres  !  ah,  you  made  him 
laugh  with  your  manoeuvres  !  The  manoeu- 
vres were  no  more  like  war  than  a  toy  pistol 
was  like  a  German  mortar.  War,  should  it 
ever  break  out,  would  not  last  the  time  it 
would  take  to  concentrate  your  army  corps; 
the  first  of  two  adversaries  who  should  be 
half  a  day  ahead  would  bring  the  other  to 
cry  mercy. 

[7] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"Well,  say,"  some  one  had  interrupted, 
"it  wouldn't  be  a  bad  plan,  then,  to  do 
one's  best  to  get  that  half-day's  advance  ?" 

"Useless !  Count  your  population,  con- 
sider your  aspirations.  Think  of  the  finances. 
Finances !  There  is  not  a  country  of  great 
armaments  that  could  maintain  war  for  six 
weeks,  nor  one  that  could  even  endure  three 
years'  preparation  for  war.  .  .  .  Ask  the 
great  banks,  which  have  the  world  in  lead- 
ing-strings, emperors  and  kings  as  well  as 
peoples;  don't  deceive  yourselves;  war  is 
impossible,  im-pos-si-ble  !  We  are  witness- 
ing, with  your  manoeuvres,  the  final  deeds 
of  a  prehistoric  age.  .  .  .  Turn  your  eyes 
to  the  future,  gentlemen,  and  all  this  be- 
dizened and  vociferous  gang  will  seem  to 
you  like  children's  toys  !" 

"But  Germany — the  militant  party — the 
Pangermanists  ?" 

"Germany  is  a  pacific  nation,  industrial 
and  commercial,  which  uses  its  cannon  as 
an  advertising  dodge.  What  we  lack — don't 
you  know  ? — is  precisely  business  sense.  And 
Germany  has  business  sense.  The  military 
[8] 


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party  ?  A  drop  of  water  in  a  lake.  The  Pan- 
germanists  ?  Advertising  men  in  the  pay  of 
the  national  industry.  In  the  first  place,  the 
Emperor,  as  every  one  says  who  has  seen 
him  near  at  hand,  is  a  secret  friend  of 
France  .  .  .  and  I  will  add,  the  most  re- 
publican of  us  all.  Socialism,  that's  his 
enemy !  .  .  .  The  army  that  we  need  is  not 
a  rabble  of  soldiers,  but  a  group  of  men  bent 
upon  keeping  the  peace.  Humanity  is  on  the 
march — it  can  never  be  repeated  too  often — 
toward  a  future  of  liberty,  equality,  fra- 
ternity. Ah,  you  must  reckon  with  economic 
rivalry;  that  is  the  law  of  life." 

"  Precisely  so." 

Memory,  quickened  no  doubt  by  her 
feverish  condition,  brought  back  to  the 
young  wife  with  extraordinary  precision, 
even  to  the  least  of  them,  these  utterances 
overheard  at  her  solitary  little  table.  True, 
she  had  amused  herself  with  repeating  them 
to  the  sublieutenant,  her  husband — she  even 
recalled  the  moment — he  was  splashing  in 
his  bath,  soaping  himself,  on  his  return 
from  the  manoeuvres.  He  had  laughed  with 

[9] 


1W  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


all  his  heart,  for  when  Jean  had  come  back 
from  the  manoeuvres  he  was  another  man 
from  what  he  had  been  when  going  to  them. 
Only  a  few  days  of  presence  with  the  corps, 
among  his  military  comrades,  had  trans- 
formed him  or,  more  correctly,  had  restored 
him  to  his  normal  disposition;  or,  in  any 
case,  had  made  him  victor  over  the  indo- 
lence with  which  he  usually  replied  to  the 
fine  talkers  of  Paris. 

As  for  Odette,  she  had  attached  not  the 
slightest  importance  to  any  of  these  ideas,  by 
whomever  enunciated.  Brought  up  in  the 
one  religion  of  happiness,  she  held  that 
happiness  through  love  was  the  sole  boon  to 
be  asked  of  fate.  What  was  the  use  of  argu- 
ing? Why  think  about  calamity?  Did  not 
certain  of  her  friends,  those  most  reputed 
for  intelligence,  insist  that  it  was  the  honor 
of  civilized  man  not  even  to  think  of  acts  of 
barbarism,  that  man  raised  himself  in  dig- 
nity as  he  neglected  to  prepare  himself  to 
make  use  of  arms  ?  Among  many  other  say- 
ings the  oft-repeated,  if  somewhat  cynical, 
pronouncement  of  M.  de  la  Villaumer  came 
[  10] 


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back  to  her:  "We  are  not  in  a  condition  to 
make  war.  We  are  unaware  how  far  we  are 
not  in  a  condition  to  make  war,  because 
we  do  not  in  the  least  know  what  war  is. 
If  war  is  made  upon  us,  as  there  is  reason 
to  fear — as  well  the  deluge." 

And  yet,  that  day,  on  coming  out  of  his 
bath,  Jean  had  become  so  wrought  up  in 
talking  of  the  army  that  he  had  almost  made 
his  wife  afraid !  She  had  thrown  her  arms 
around  him  as  he  wrapped  himself  in  his 
bathrobe,  saying: 

"  Don't  talk  so,  Jean  !  Oh,  imagine,  if  even 
you  were  to  be  so  much  as  disfigured  by  an 
ugly  wound  !  Your  lovely  eyes,  my  darling ! 
Your  beautiful  teeth  ! — No,  that  would  drive 
me  wild !" 

And  because  he  had  laughed,  laughed 
heartily,  so  as  completely  to  close  his  lovely 
eyes,  she  had  at  once  thought  of  something 
else. 

Without  ever  thinking  of  going  even 
slightly  into  subjects  of  this  sort,  she  had 
been  buoyed  up  by  a  great  credulity,  born  of 
optimism;  not,  indeed,  as  to  war,  which  in- 

t  ii  ] 


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terested  her  not  the  least,  but  as  to  Jean, 
who  alone  was  of  consequence,  and  who,  as  a 
"reserve  officer,"  she  was  sure  could  not  be 
called  to  take  part  in  a  campaign.  It  was  an 
artless  idea,  rooted  in  her  mind  by  the  pres- 
sure of  her  exuberant  happiness.  For  nothing 
in  the  world  would  she  have  tried  to  get  at 
the  root  of  it,  lest  the  result  should  prove  un- 
comfortable. It  was  the  same  self-indulgent, 
mental  indolence  which,  for  example,  had 
withheld  her  from  asking  herself  the  mean- 
ing of  words  that  dropped  from  her  hus- 
band's lips : 

"Well,  here  I  am,  attached  to  the  cover- 
ing troops.  You  and  I  will  not  be  able  to  go 
into  Touraine."  Well,  they  would  not  be  able 
to  go  into  Touraine;  they  would  go  some- 
where else. 

Then  memory  carried  her  on  to  the  be- 
ginning of  last  season,  at  the  seashore.  The 
weather  had  been  so  fine  !  Jean  had  been  so 
lucky  as  to  get  his  vacation  from  his  com- 
mercial house  by  the  i5th  of  July;  they 
had  gone  to  Surville.  The  Hotel  de  Norman- 
die  was  already  well  filled,  the  Casino  was 

[   12] 


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crowded,  sports  were  humming,  the  Little 
Theatre  was  exhibiting  Parisian  vedettes,  a 
row  of  autos  was  sending  vile  smells  up  to 
the  terrace  where  every  one  sat  of  afternoons 
imbibing  soft  drinks  and  roasting  in  the  sun 
to  the  music  of  the  gypsy  orchestra;  elegant 
young  men  were  displaying  khaki  costumes, 
martingales,  and  broad-brimmed  hats.  In 
the  evening  every  one  had  danced  the  tango 
in  the  hall.  The  great  stir  of  the  watering- 
place  had  begun — futile  doings  without 
number,  comings  and  goings,  from  bar  to 
bar,  from  casino  to  casino,  from  luncheon  to 
luncheon. 

"Oh,  say,  are  you  coming?  Look  here, 
Jean !  Aren't  you  tiresome,  always  reading 
despatches !  One  would  say  that  you  were 
expecting  something  to  happen.  What  con- 
cern is  it  of  yours  ?" 

Every  evening,  on  their  way  to  the  great 
hall  of  the  Casino  through  the  gallery  that 
looked  out  upon  the  sea,  whether  going  to 
the  theatre  or  the  music-hall,  or  simply  in- 
tending to  sit  down  and  drink  their  coffee  or 
their  camomile,  they  had  found  a  crowd  of, 

[  13 1 


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men  in  tuxedos  standing  before  the  frame 
that  hung  on  the  right  of  the  door,  on  which 
despatches  from  Paris  and  quotations  of  the 
Bourse  were  posted.  Odette  could  still  hear 
the  reproaches  she  had  addressed  to  her  hus- 
band as  he  returned  with  unwonted  serious- 
ness from  reading  them. 

"Well,  what  about  it  all?"  she  had  asked. 
Jean  had  kept  back  some  of  the  more  sen- 
sational news,  but  one  evening  he  had 
added : 

"There  is  an  ultimatum  to  Serbia." 

"What  of  that?" 

Nothing  more  had  been  said.  But  Jean 
had  risen  twice  from  his  chair  to  speak  to 
men  whom  he  knew,  conferring  with  them  in 
the  lobby,  then  returning  to  his  wife. 

"Oh,  nothing  will  happen  yet,"  he  had 
said. 

This  had  gone  on  for  several  evenings.  It 
had  become  necessary  to  explain  some 
things.  Then  Odette  herself  had  become 
anxious;  she  would  go  with  her  husband  to 
read  the  despatches;  she  would  go  to  them 
by  herself  in  the  daytime.  But  the  number 


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of  readers  was  increasing,  and  the  silence, 
or  the  few  words  that  would  escape  from  the 
group,  troubled  her;  she  would  go  down  to 
the  beach  to  read  the  despatches  at  the 
Figaro  kiosk.  Threats  of  war  ?  .  .  .  Euro- 
pean war  ?  .  .  .  War  ?  .  .  .  No,  surely  that 
was  not  likely.  The  idea  was  rinding  extreme 
difficulty  in  penetrating  people's  skulls.  Des- 
patch was  succeeding  despatch,  twice  a  day, 
now  reassuring,  now  disturbing;  but  when- 
ever one  contained  matter  for  alarm,  it  was 
always  better  founded  than  that  of  the  pre- 
vious day. 

Odette  had  at  last  asked  her  husband : 

"Well,  if  by  any  chance  there  should  be 
war,  would  that  affect  you — yourself  ? " 

"Don't  be  in  a  hurry,  my  darling;  war  has 
not  yet  been  declared." 

"But— but— if  it  should  be  ?" 

"Well,  if  it  should  be,  I  am  a  reserve 
officer." 

"What  is  the  reserve  ?  Is  it  when  there  are 
no  more  active  soldiers  ?" 

He  had  kissed  her,  laughing.  Not  long 
before  a  relative  of  one  of  the  most  influen- 

[15] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


tial  bankers  in  Paris  had  declared,  at  a 
neighboring  table,  that  "All  was  arranged  !" 

But  the  next  morning  a  rumor  had  been 
spread  at  the  Casino  that  the  news  was  so 
discouraging  it  had  not  been  posted.  Jean 
had  gone  to  ascertain.  The  rumor  had  been 
confirmed.  Then  he  had  said  to  his  wife: 

"It  is  time  to  take  precautions.  Listen,  my 
darling,  I  shall  go  to  Paris  this  evening.  I  will 
set  my  business  in  order,  I  will  see  La  Villau- 
mer,  who  knows  everything,  and  Awogade, 
who  lunches  with  the  President  of  the 
Council.  I  shall  learn  what  can  be  learned, 
and  I  shall  try  to  return  by  night." 

Once  again  she  could  hear  all  these  words, 
could  see  again  his  slightest  actions,  could 
imagine  La  Villaumer,  so  far-seeing,  and 
Clotilde  Awogade,  surrounded  by  her  flow- 
ers in  her  almost  too  delicious  apartment, 
making  a  face  when  she  heard  her  husband 
talking  of  disagreeable  things.  She  lived  over 
again  the  sad  night  that  she  had  passed 
alone,  sleepless,  and  the  bat  that  had  flown 
into  her  room  like  a  little  devil,  and  the  faces 
next  morning  at  the  Casino,  on  the  beach, 
[  16] 


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everywhere  !  And  the  departures,  the  almost 
empty  hotel,  ever  since  that  evening  when 
she  had  been  expecting  her  husband — the 
evening  when  he  did  not  come  ! 

He  did  not  come  because  he  had  found  in 
Paris  an  order  to  "join  immediately  for  a 
period  of  instruction."  He  had  telegraphed 
to  her:  "Don't  leave;  all  will  be  well;  will 


write." 


A  period  of  instruction !  So  suddenly  de- 
cided upon !  What  did  that  mean  ?  Was  it 
war  ?  She  had  asked  the  people  around  her. 
Some  had  seemed  stunned  by  her  question; 
others  had  said:  "A  period  of  instruction  ? 
Nothing  is  more  usual." 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are  mobilizing," 
some  one  had  remarked.  A  gentleman  had 
said:  "No,  madame,  mobilization  cannot  be 
other  than  general.  It  may  be  that  certain 
officers  have  been  summoned  individually, 
but  that  is  merely  a  measure  of  precaution; 
the  situation  is  evidently  strained." 

"But  why  should  he  be  called  and  not 
others  ?  He  is  only  an  officer  of  reserves." 

"That  depends  upon  the  locality  of  his 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


depot,  no  doubt.  Do  you  know  where  it 
is?" 

"  I  know  that  he  formerly  belonged  to  the 
Eleventh  Corps,  but  I  think  he  has  been 
passed  over  to  Nancy." 

"Covering  troops.  Ah — ah!" 

"That  is  it  precisely,  sir;  he  is  attached  to 
the  covering  troops." 

"Oh,  very  well !    Oh,  very  well !" 

She  had  found  another  woman  in  the 
same  case  as  herself,  or  nearly  so.  But  the 
husband  of  this  one,  who  also  had  been  in- 
dividually called,  was  a  captain  in  active 
service,  and  in  garrison  at  Pont-a-Mous- 
son. 

"That  one,"  Odette  had  said  to  herself; 
"  it  is  all  over  with  him." 

The  difference  had  seemed  to  be  to  her 
own  advantage,  and  her  courage  had  risen 
correspondingly.  Jean  was  only  a  sublieu- 
tenant; he  belonged  only  to  the  reserves. 
She  was  absorbed  in  compassion  for  the 
other  woman,  so  different  in  character  from 
herself,  bravely  prepared  for  the  war  and 
ready  to  sacrifice  everything;  who  had  said: 
[  18] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"I  regret  that  my  boys  are  not  grown;  they 
would  be  so  many  more  defenders  of  the 
country." 

Odette  had  been  as  ill  prepared  as  possible 
for  such  an  utterance.  Everything  about  it 
surprised  her;  she  could  not  understand  it  in 
the  least. 

A  lady  had  arrived  from  Paris,  the  wife  of 
a  deputy.  She  had  said  to  any  who  would 
listen: 

"I  may  as  well  tell  you;  mobilization  will 
be  ordered  to-morrow." 

The  weather  had  been  ideally  fine,  though 
there  had  been  a  suggestion  of  thunder- 
storms in  the  west.  Children  were  playing  on 
the  beach;  the  sea,  under  a  cloudless  sky, 
was  calm  even  to  torpor.  One  could  see 
Havre  stretched  along  in  the  sunlight,  like  a 
greyhound  panting  with  heat;  in  the  dis- 
tance were  noble  passenger-ships,  and  tiny 
sails  apparently  motionless.  Never  had  the 
sky,  the  sea,  the  land,  appeared  so  much  to 
long  for  peace;  never,  perhaps,  had  the  joy 
of  existence  been  more  imperious.  Whatever 
might  be  the  subjects  of  alarm,  everything 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


cried  aloud  that  to  believe  in  coming  mis- 
fortune was  impossible. 

The  next  day,  Saturday,  August  i, 
Odette,  distressed  by  vague  talk  that  gave 
no  definite  information,  had  gone  to  the  post 
with  a  letter  to  her  dear  Jean.  She  had  ad- 
dressed it  to  Paris,  since  she  had  no  knowl- 
edge where  to  reach  him.  It  was  about  four 
o'clock.  She  had  seen  a  group  forming  before 
the  mayor's  office,  and  the  town  drummer 
arriving,  with  a  long  retinue  of  street  ur- 
chins at  his  heels.  The  drummer  was  a  tall 
youth,  lean  and  wan,  grave  with  a  gravity 
not  usual  in  a  town  drummer  who  has  to 
announce  that  a  little,  long-haired,  bright- 
gray  dog  is  lost.  The  crowd  had  gathered 
around  him  with  frantic  eagerness,  while 
he  executed  his  preliminary  performance. 
Then,  drawing  a  paper  from  his  pocket,  he 
had  unfolded  it  and  read  at  the  top  of  his 
voice,  without  the  slightest  change  of  coun- 
tenance : 

"General  mobilization  is  declared !  The 
first  day  of  mobilization  is  Sunday,  August 
2.  No  man  may  set  out  without  first  con- 

[20] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


suiting  the  bill  which  will  be  immediately 
posted."  And  the  drummer  had  beaten  the 
ban. 

With  a  single  impulse,  as  if  under  orders, 
the  crowd,  mainly  composed  of  young  men, 
had  raised  their  hats,  crying:  "Vive  la 
France!"  One  lad  had  said:  "Vive  la 
guerre!  "  And  the  drummer  had  departed 
to  repeat  his  message  at  another  crossroads. 

It  had  seemed  a  perfectly  simple  event, 
something  almost  usual,  at  the  junction  of 
these  four  streets  of  the  little  town.  A  deed 
done;  the  pattering  of  dispersing  feet;  si- 
lence !  And  this  simple  act,  repeated  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  times  at  this  same 
hour,  was  the  most  tragic  alarm-cry  in  the 
history  of  man,  reverberating  at  the  same 
moment  of  time  over  all  the  terrestrial  globe. 
Little  noise,  almost  no  words,  and  all  these 
men,  raising  their  hats  to  pronounce  a  word 
suddenly  become  sacred,  had  made  the  sacri- 
fice of  their  lives.  Imagination  loses  itself  in 
picturing  the  multitude  of  points  upon  this 
earth  on  which  a  like  gift  of  self  had  just 
been  made.  For  if  the  man  who  goes  hopes  to 

[21    ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


be  spared,  he  who  learns  that  he  is  called  to 
go,  for  the  moment  gives  himself,  body  and 
soul. 

Almost  instantaneously  the  church-bells 
had  broken  out  with  the  tocsin,  as  if  the 
town  had  been  on  fire.  Every  church;  then, 
on  the  hills,  throughout  the  countryside,  the 
same  signal  of  distress  spread  like  an  epi- 
demic. It  had  been  too  recent  to  be  utterly 
terrifying;  many  heard  it  and  did  not  think. 
No  one  realized  the  tragedy  to  which  these 
humble  little  bells  were  sorrowfully  calling 
the  world.  It  is  the  salvation  of  men  that 
they  always  limit  their  thoughts  to  the  most 
immediate  duty.  The  thought  of  a  pair  of 
shoes,  of  the  place  where  one's  livret  is  hid- 
den, of  saying  good-by  to  this  one  or  that 
one,  checks  the  vertigo  which  the  enormity 
of  the  event  might  well  produce. 

At  first  Odette  had  felt  oppressed  and 
wept  like  a  nervous  child  who  hears  a  sud- 
den alarm.  She  had  been  unable,  for  her 
tears,  to  see  the  letter-box  into  which  she 
dropped  that  letter  to  Jean  which  no  longer 
signified  anything  and  would  doubtless 

[22] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


never  reach  him  to  whom  it  was  addressed. 
And  all  around  her,  at  the  doors,  in  the 
streets,  on  the  beach,  at  the  hotel,  women 
had  been  weeping. 

Odette  had  gone  up  to  her  room.  She  had 
said  to  her  maid : 

"What  about  you,  Amelia  ?" 

"Me  ?  Mine  must  join  on  the  second  day. 
I  thought  of  asking  Madame  if  I  might  take 
this  evening's  train;  to-morrow  there  will  be 
no  room  for  civilians.  That  way  I  might  kiss 
him  good-by " 

"Go,  Amelia." 

She  had  seated  herself  at  the  window  that 
looked  out  upon  the  flower-garden,  the  de- 
serted tennis-courts,  the  sea.  She  was  alone. 
There  was  nothing  for  her  to  do  but  think 
and  wait. 

Everything  around  her  had  seemed 
stunned,  congealed.  It  was  as  if  there  was 
no  longer  any  one  anywhere.  The  smoke  of 
three  great  transatlantics  in  the  Havre 
roadstead — sole  perceptible  movement — 
was  rising  straight  up  in  the  motionless  air. 
A  few  fair-weather  clouds  on  the  horizon 

[23  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


were  turning  a  fleecy  rose  color.  One  or  two 
fishing-smacks,  all  sails  spread,  were  idling 
as  on  a  lake.  In  ordinary  times  one  would 
have  said :  "  What  a  glorious  sunset  we  shall 
have !"  And  Odette  thought:  "The  men  in 
those  boats,  at  this  moment,  do  not  know!  ''' 
An  involuntary  change  had  instantane- 
ously taken  place  in  her  mind.  She  had  trans- 
ported herself  to  a  time  like  that  which  still 
reigned  in  the  boats,  a  time  when  "  They  did 
not  know!  "  A  time  when  there  was  nothing 
unusual  in  the  world,  when  life,  smiling,  had 
sung  to  her,  when  the  hope  of  a  yet  lovelier 
life  had  lulled  thought  to  sleep.  That  time — 
already  so  far  distant — was  only  an  hour 
ago.  And  everything  had  been  changed — 
changed  as  nothing  had  ever  been  changed 
before.  Were  they  living  on  the  same  planet 
as  in  that  former  time  ?  Who  could  have 
dreamed,  at  that  time,  of  what  was  taking 
place  now  ?  She  tried  to  foresee  the  morrow, 
but  she  could  imagine  nothing — nothing. 
Only  La  Villaumer's  saying  came  back  to 
her:  "We  are  not  in  condition.  ...  As  well 
the  deluge!" 

[24] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


And  for  all  that,  deep  down,  very  deep 
within  herself,  she  had  not  at  all  believed  in 
the  horror  that  had  come. 

She  had  remained  sitting  there,  at  her 
window,  until  the  hour  for  dinner,  living 
over  her  past  life  with  Jean — thrilling  with 
his  first  caresses.  She"  had  never  loved  any 
one  but  Jean  before  her  marriage;  since  her 
marriage,  only  him.  It  was  no  longer  the  war 
which  seemed  to  her  unimaginable,  but  the 
power  of  her  love  for  Jean.  And  instead  of 
imagining  chaos,  her  natural  inclination  had 
impelled  her  to  summon  up  the  loveliest  pic- 
tures of  the  past.  She  had  smiled,  her  body 
had  relaxed,  her  fingers  had  quivered  as  if  in 
anticipation  of  a  caress,  and  in  the  empty  air 
her  lips  had  made  the  motion  of  a  kiss. 

A  man's  voice  on  the  balcony  next  her 
own  had  said : 

"It  is  absurd  to  think  of  nature  as  taking 
note  of  our  affairs;  but  just  for  curiosity 
look  at  that  sky:  I  have  never  seen  anything 
like  it." 

The  words  had  been  spoken  to  some  one 
in  the  next  room,  who  drew  near  to  the  win- 

[25 1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


dow,  and  she  had  heard  a  woman's  voice  ex- 
claiming, with  a  moan  or  in  desperate  ap- 
peal, such  as  one  seldom  hears. 

Odette  had  risen,  and  she  too  had  looked 
out.  She  had  never  been  superstitious,  and 
was  especially  not  inclined  to  doleful  prog- 
nostications. She  had  always  been  happy; 
her  life  had  flowed  along,  so  to  speak,  like 
one  continued  festival.  Being  alone  in  her 
room,  she  did  not  speak;  but  all  her  flesh 
quivered. 

It  may  well  be  that  similar  phenomena 
occur  sometimes  without  attracting  our  at- 
tention; yet,  on  that  day,  to  three  persons 
occupying  neighboring  rooms  in  a  hotel,  to 
others  also,  who  had  spoken  of  it  at  dinner 
or  in  the  evening,  that  sunset  appeared 
utterly  unusual,  and  such  as  might  justify 
all  gossiping  conjectures  as  to  the  relations 
of  the  earth  with  the  marvellous  changes, 
stupendous  in  their  nature,  which  take  place 
in  the  vault  of  heaven.  Above  the  quiet  sea 
the  whole  horizon  was  a  fiery  furnace,  blaz- 
ing with  intense  fervency,  across  which 
were  spread,  like  fragments  of  slashed  flesh, 

[26] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


long  clouds  of  a  livid  bluish  red.  Before  long 
the  intense  fire  died  down,  as  if  all  the  com- 
bustible matter  had  been  devoured  by  the 
fury  of  the  flames.  Then  the  disk  of  the  sun 
appeared  in  outline,  like  a  gigantic  blood- 
blister,  like  a  crystal  bowl  so  overful  that 
the  viscous  liquid  was  escaping  by  some 
fissure  and  spreading  to  right  and  left  into  a 
marsh,  a  lake,  an  ocean  of  human  serum, 
flowing  in  every  direction  toward  rivers  with 
contracted  banks,  which  upheaved  against 
it  a  formidable  tide.  Suddenly  the  sinister 
blister  burst  of  itself  and  was  absorbed  in 
the  mass  of  burning  matter,  or  of  thick 
waters,  heavy  and  foul,  and  became  thin 
streams  like  those  that  trickle  from  a 
slaughter-house. 

No,  truly,  it  was  no  vertigo  of  the  im- 
agination, no  hallucination  of  the  vision,  no 
compliant  romance;  it  was  a  real  picture, 
symbolic  of  aspect,  preceding,  like  an  inade- 
quate vignette,  the  flaming  pages  of  the 
great  book  of  history  that  had  just  been 
opened. 

In  Odette's  soul  it  had  been  like  a  curtain 

[27] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


that  falls  before  a  new  act;  once  the  curtain 
is  raised,  one's  expectation  is  fixed;  no  more 
light  comedy,  no  more  pleasant  extrava- 
ganzas, no  more  ballet !  The  tragedy  is  about 
to  begin. 

With  a  bound  her  fevered  memory  over- 
leaped several  months  of  war.  They  had  en- 
tered an  atmosphere  of  fire;  it  was  hard,  but 
they  endured  it.  Alsace:  a  breath  of  wild 
hope,  penultimate  moment  of  Old  France; 
Belgium:  enthusiasm  first,  horror  after- 
ward; alliances:  prognostications,  so-called 
assured,  as  to  the  "final  result";  invasion: 
a  march  to  the  scaffold  in  which  the  con- 
demned cling  to  a  hope  of  the  improbable; 
the  Marne:  the  improbable  realized,  for 
which  no  one  had  dared  to  hope;  the  enemy 
grappled  with  and  hurled  back;  the  fall  of 
Antwerp,  of  which  so  many  folk,  who  will 
appear  again  in  the  end,  insist  that  "it  has 
not  the  least  importance." 

Odette  had  received  letters  from  Jean. 
How  could  Jean  be  in  such  a  fiery  furnace  ? 
And  how  had  she  been  able  to  endure  the 
thought  ?  But  many  things  once  believed  im- 

[28] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


possible  were  beginning  to  be  recognized  as 
possible.  Jean  was  enduring  his  fatigues,  and 
everything  in  him  was  taking  on  a  new  char- 
acter. She  had  found  him  not  such  as  he  had 
been  on  his  return  from  the  manoeuvres,  but 
a  man  exalted  above  himself,  who  seemed  to 
have  transcended  his  own  height,  however 
he  might  try  to  appear  simply  his  usual 
charming  self.  She  could  divine  his  suffer- 
ings, and  yet  she  felt  him  to  be  happy. 
Odette  had  even  come  to  think:  "How 
little  he  needs  me!"  She  had  returned  to 
Paris  that  she  might  receive  his  letters 
more  promptly.  But  he  appeared  no  longer 
to  have  any  notion  of  time.  That  was  be- 
cause he  was  no  longer  master  of  his  time. 
Odette  was  always  writing  to  him  as  to  an 
isolated  being,  who  could  do  with  himself 
as  he  liked.  Without  intending  it,  he  would 
reply  to  her  letters  as  if  he  were  one  who 
had  no  individual  existence,  a  man  carried 
away  by  something  greater  than  himself, 
something  which  alone  counted.  She  had 
not  yet  been  able  to  understand,  and  she  had 
gently  reproached  Jean  for  neglecting  her. 

[29] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


And  yet  Odette's  perpetual  anxiety  had 
been  gradually  growing  less;  she  was  already 
gaining  confidence.  Jean  had  passed  through 
so  many  dangers  !  She  had  begun  to  believe 
in  a  possible  immunity.  How  many  men  had 
been  in  the  midst  of  wars  through  all  a  long 
life,  and  yet  had  died  in  bed,  surrounded  by 
their  families ! 

Then,  suddenly,  one  fine  morning  in  the 
second  fortnight  of  September  Odette,  still 
in  bed,  had  heard  the  door-bell  at  an  hour 
when  seldom  any  one  came  to  the  front 
door.  Amelia,  her  own  maid,  who  had  an- 
swered the  bell,  had  rushed,  breathless,  to 
her  mistress : 

"Madame!  it  is  Madame  de  Prans  who 
insists  upon  seeing  Madame  !" 

From  her  bed  Odette  had  called  out: 
"Come  in,  Simone,  come  right  in !" 

Simone  de  Prans  had  brought  tidings  of 
Jean.  She  had  received  them  from  dear  Pier- 
rot, her  husband,  who  had  been  sent  to 
Paris  for  twenty-four  hours  on  a  mission. 

Tidings  of  Jean  ?  But,  to  begin  with,  they 
were  satisfactory  ?  How  ? — satisfactory  ? 

[30] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Well,  she  could  say  that  they  were  not  bad. 
But  "not  bad"  is  not  good!  No,  but  one 
must  not  exaggerate  things.  In  short,  half- 
admissions,  denials,  returns  upon  the  ques- 
tion, openings  left  for  hope,  equivocal  ut- 
terances, embarrassments  of  which  Odette 
soon  ceased  to  be  the  dupe.  And  she  had 
had  courage  to  say,  suddenly: 

"  My  little  Simone,  you  dare  not  acknowl- 
edge that  the  greatest  of  calamities  has  be- 
fallen me." 

It  was  at  that  moment  of  half-wakeful- 
ness  during  which  all  these  previous  events 
had  passed  before  her  memory,  that  Odette 
suddenly  came  broad  awake.  She  uttered  a 
great  cry,  and  every  one  in  the  next  room 
came  running. 

But  now,  after  all,  Odette  refused  to  be- 
lieve the  dreadful  fact  which  she  herself  had 
divined!  She  declared  that  it  could  not  be,  it 
was  "too  unjust." 

Why  should  Jean  be  killed  and  not  an- 
other? With  fierce  anger  she  revolted  against 
her  lot,  crying  out  and  struggling  in  her  bed 
like  a  mad  woman. 

[31 1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"It  is  not  true!  it  is  not  true!  you  all 
have  a  grudge  against  me !  you  are  jealous  of 
me  because  of  Jean !  .  .  .  Jean,  my  Jean,  I 
shall  yet  embrace  you,  or  there  is  no  God  !" 
— until  suddenly,  vociferating  and  shriek- 
ing, she  again  lost  consciousness. 


H 


ii 


.ER  doctor  was  there,  in  a  major's  uni- 
form. They  had  found  him  as  by  a  miracle: 
he  happened  to  be  at  home,  at  the  telephone, 
the  very  moment  when  Amelia  called  him. 
As  he  could  not  remain  he  gave  his  instruc- 
tions to  Simone  de  Prans,  to  Germaine  Le 
Gault,  to  Rose  Misson,  the  last  two,  noti- 
fied by  Simone,  having  dressed  in  all  haste 
and  rushed  to  her.  The  door-bell  was  con- 
stantly ringing.  The  news  of  Odette's  afflic- 
tion was  spreading  through  Paris.  True,  the 
war  had  already  caused  many  bereavements, 
but  among  this  intimate  group,  Lieutenant 
Jacquelin  was  the  first  to  fall. 

Odette,    recovering    her    senses,    found 
herself  in  the  position  of  an  exceptional 

[32] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


victim  among  her  friends,  both  women  and 
men, 

But  the  women,  while  encompassing  her 
with  compassion,  had  in  their  eyes,  their 
voices,  something  other  than  bereavement 
usually  inspires.  When  they  tried  to  utter 
consoling  words,  all,  without  exception, 
spoke  of  "pride,"  of  the  "honor"  which  was 
reflected  upon  Odette.  Odette  accepted  the 
words  as  a  part  of  the  phraseology  of  condo- 
lence; but  she  considered  only  one  thing — 
Jean  no  longer  existed.  Her  Jean,  her  lover, 
her  happiness,  her  preoccupation,  her  days, 
her  nights,  her  revery  of  yesterday,  her 
hope  for  to-morrow;  Jean,  caresses,  kisses, 
tenderness,  sweetness,  perfume,  foolishness 
and  wisdom,  the  beloved  master  and  yet  the 
child,  to  be  cradled  in  her  arms;  Jean — a 
thousand  times  more  than  her  own  life — 
was  no  longer  numbered  among  men !  She 
could  see  him  again,  from  head  to  foot,  in 
the  minutest  physical  details,  and  in  the 
same  moment  she  was  certain  that  he  was  no 
longer  anything  other  than  a  phantom;  that 
never  again  her  arms  of  flesh  would  press  to 

[33] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


her  his  flesh,  that  her  lips  would  never  again 
kiss  his  lips.  Tears  did  not  come  in  the  tor- 
rents that  bring  solace  to  the  sharpest  griefs. 
The  period  of  yielding  to  a  cruel  fate,  when 
one  pities  oneself,  had  not  come  to  her.  Re- 
bellion still  persisted.  Odette  raged,  uttered 
bitter  words.  The  honeyed  soothings  of  her 
friends  only  exasperated  her.  Other  friends 
were  continually  coming  up  to  see  her.  She 
fell  into  hysterics.  The  doctor  had  gone.  The 
most  determined  of  those  present,  "good" 
Rose  Misson  and  Mme.  de  Blauve,  a  woman 
who  inspired  respect,  took  upon  themselves 
to  turn  all  the  others  out  of  the  room  and  to 
close  the  front  door  against  every  one. 

Rose  Misson  was  a  little  woman,  plump 
and  mild,  whose  husband,  some  fifteen  years 
older  than  herself,  and  free  of  all  military 
obligation,  had  entered  the  service  as  chauf- 
feur at  the  beginning  of  the  war.  Misson  was 
somewhat  criticised  for  this  step.  Therefore 
Rose,  who  felt  the  power  of  public  opinion, 
was  full  of  admiration  of  the  lot  of  her  friend 
Odette.  Private  griefs  are  nothing  in  com- 
parison with  the  special  consciousness  which 

[34] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


public  opinion  arouses  in  us.  Notwithstand- 
ing her  real  love  for  him,  at  the  present 
moment  Rose  would  have  preferred  her 
husband  dead  rather  than  ill  appreciated. 
Rose's  sentiment  with  regard  to  her  friend 
might  have  been  thus  expressed: 

"Yes,  my  dear,  your  grief  is  immense; 
your  existence  as  a  wife  is  shattered.  But 
everybody  feels  that  your  lot  is  beautiful. 
You  will  grow  greater  among  us  all,  will 
eclipse  us,  each  and  every  one.  From  this  day 
you  have  gained  universal  veneration;  your 
name  is  pronounced  with  reverence;  you  are 
changed  in  our  eyes;  your  presence  brings 
even  to  us  a  meaning  which  we  never  knew 
before;  the  memory  of  your  husband,  his 
glorious  name,  is  something  august  which  is 
penetrating  a  circle  in  which  such  a  quality 
has  never  been  known." 

Rose  said  nothing  of  all  this  to  her  friend, 
because  the  language  of  their  circle  did  not 
lend  itself  to  such  thoughts;  perhaps  also, 
even  while  thinking  them,  she  had  no  wish 
to  utter  them. 

For  the  first  time  since  the  outbreak  of 

[35 1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


war  Odette  did  not  ask  for  the  evening 
paper.  To  read  the  news — the  communicue  ? 
How  indifferent  she  was  to  all  that !  There 
was  nothing  more  for  her  to  learn.  Her  hus- 
band was  dead;  for  her  the  war  was  ended. 
The  war  had  been  him,  anxiety  for  his 
special  fate.  Him  disappeared,  what  did  the 
rest  matter  ? 

And  the  sense  of  nothingness  which  had 
seized  her  by  the  throat  that  morning 
touched  her  again,  more  glacial  than  before. 
Nothing !  No  longer  anything !  Yes,  the  war 
was  an  unheard-of  misfortune;  but  the  war 
had  captivated  one  like  a  drama  of  un- 
equalled interest.  The  drama  might  go  on 
henceforth;  she  would  not  go  to  witness  it. 
She  had  gone  to  it  only  for  one  actor,  who, 
having  played  his  part,  had  disappeared. 
She  too  would  disappear. 

Odette  slept  and  spoke  as  in  a  dream. 
She  fell  into  delirium;  insisted  on  going  with 
her  husband,  saying:  "If  I  had  known,  I 
would  not  have  let  you  go  one  step."  He 
seemed  to  reply  to  her,  alluding  to  a  grave 
wound  which  the  commandant  had  re- 

[36] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


ceived.  She  would  repeat:  "The  comman- 
dant's leg  ? .  .  .  Oh,  let  them  touch  you  once, 
you !  I  am  here.  ...  I  am  here  to  care  for 
you,  my  love.  .  .  ."  And  she  awoke  with 
a  start. 

"  He  is  dead,  Rose !  Ah,  Rose,  how  fortu- 
nate you  are !" 

"But  my  husband  is  fifty  years  old, 
Odette!" 

"Oh,  if  my  husband  had  only  been  sixty !" 

Simone  de  Prans  and  Mme.  de  Blauve 
came  again  in  the  afternoon. 

"Your  husband,  Odette,  fell  like  a  hero; 
there  is  no  more  beautiful  death." 

"There  is  no  beautiful  death." 

"Yes,  there  is!" 

"It  is  easy  for  you  to  talk." 

"No,  Odette,  you  don't  consider  that 
everything  is  changed." 

"One's  heart,  too?" 

"Yes,  one's  heart,  too.  Many  among  us 
pass  for  hard-hearted  and  inhuman,  but 
everything  now  appears  from  another  point 
of  view." 

"Love  is  always  love." 

[37] 


335635 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Odette,  whose  sense  of  hearing  was  ex- 
tremely acute,  overheard  a  low-voiced  con- 
versation in  which  Simone  was  saying  how 
well  her  dear  Pierrot  was  looking,  and  she 
swooned  again. 

The  rest  of  the  day  was  only  one  lamenta- 
tion, an  inarticulate  and  continuous  moan- 
ing. 

The  following  days  were  no  better.  The 
physician  dreaded  meningitis. 

Human  beings  are  often  weak  in  the  face 
of  great  catastrophes  when  they  are  gov- 
erned only  by  their  natural  sentiments.  Yet 
Rose,  who  was  in  all  things  natural,  re- 
mained completely  devoted  to  Odette. 

"It  is  easier,"  said  Mme.  de  Blauve,  "to 
nurse  a  gravely  wounded  man  than  a  woman 
distracted  with  grief,  for  whom  there  is  noth- 
ing to  do,  to  whom  there  is  nothing  to 
say." 

The  first  two  days  of  Odette's  grief  were 
as  nothing  in  comparison  with  those  that 
followed.  She  uttered  no  sound  except  to 
moan;  she  fell  into  delirious  slumbers,  had 
hours  of  furious  insomnia,  nightmares,  hal- 

[  38] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


lucinations,  attacks  of  hysterics.  At  last 
came  the  period  of  confidences,  with  torrents 
of  tears. 

Among  Odette's  friends,  some  had  not 
been  pleased  because  they  had  not  been  ad- 
mitted to  her  room  the  first  day;  others  were 
forgetting  everything  in  their  dominant  de- 
sire to  obtain  a  place  as  nurse  in  a  hospital. 
Some  of  these,  having  succeeded  in  compass- 
ing their  wishes,  came  at  last,  and  were  not 
denied  entrance  to  the  sick-room,  by  reason 
of  the  costume  that  they  wore.  At  first  it 
seemed  as  if  they  might  harm  Odette  by  the 
lamentable  scenes  which  they  described. 
These  nurses  delighted  in  employing  new, 
technical  words,  which  they  had  taken 
pains  to  learn  by  heart,  like  so  many  school- 
girls. But  Odette  would  murmur:  "All  your 
unhappy  ones,  with  their  surgical  operations 
—they  are  alive,  after  all."  And  she  would 
think  to  herself:  "Mine  is  dead."  What  an- 
swer could  be  made  to  that  ? 

Odette  received  heaps  of  letters,  whose 
eloquence  overwhelmed  without  touching 
her.  She  deemed  all  their  expressions  exag- 

[39] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


gerated,  and  yet  she  could  not  say  that  they 
rang  false;  they  spoke  of  France,  of  glory 
and  honor;  hardly  did  they  make  allusion  to 
her  love,  which  to  her  was  all. 

She  was  beginning  to  get  up,  to  come  and 
go  about  her  apartment.  It  made  things 
worse.  Every  place,  every  article,  reminded 
her  of  Jean.  He  used  to  sit  in  that  chair;  he 
had  loved  to  play  with  that  little  ornament. 
Before  his  photographs,  in  the  drawing- 
room,  she  succumbed  once  more.  Here  he 
was  in  tennis-costume,  so  graceful,  so  lithe, 
so  beautiful;  there  in  house  dress,  that  velvet 
jacket  that  she  had  so  often  encircled  with 
her  arms.  She  would  walk  through  the  rooms 
trying  to  breathe  the  faint  odors  of  a  per- 
fume which  he  might  have  left  there.  She 
would  sink  down  upon  the  divan  where  once 
there  had  been  room  for  him.  .  .  .  And  she 
started  with  a  sudden  thrill  when  the  shad- 
ow of  Amelia  formed  a  halo-surrounded 
image  against  the  fixed  curtain  of  the  glass 
door.  In  the  old  days,  when  he  came  in,  a 
great  shadow  would  spread  thus  behind  the 
yellow  silk,  and  suddenly  his  tall  form  would 
[40] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


rise  above  the  curtain,  and  his  kind  smile 
would  appear  through  the  glass.  .  .  .  Then 
she  would  listen  for  the  sound  of  a  key  in 
the  door.  No  one  would  ever  again  enter 
that  door  by  means  of  a  key.  .  .  . 

As  she  was  opening,  in  a  drawer,  the  box  of 
his  favorite  cigars  and  would  fain  have  lost 
herself  in  the  odor  which  brought  before  her 
the  image  of  her  man,  a  telegram  was 
brought  to  her.  She  tore  it  open  mechani- 
cally, all  news  being  indifferent  to  her.  It  was 
from  Mile,  de  Blauve,  a  girl  of  fourteen,  and 
announced  that  her  father,  Commandant  de 
Blauve,  had  died  upon  the  field  of  honor. 
Her  mother  had  been  for  the  last  few  days  a 
nurse  at  Rheims,  her  natal  city,  under  bom- 
bardment. The  three  little  De  Blauve  girls 
were  alone  at  home  with  the  governess,  the 
two  older  brothers  being  in  Jersey  at  school. 

For  the  first  time  since  her  bereavement 
Odette  was  obliged  to  think  of  others.  She 
closed  the  box  of  cigars,  and  thought  of  that 
house  in  the  Avenue  dTena  that  she  knew  so 
well,  of  those  charming  little  girls,  hence- 
forth orphaned,  the  eldest  of  whom  was  so 

[41 1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


calmly  acquitting  herself  of  the  duties  of 
courtesy. 

"I  must  go  there,"  she  said,  and  called 
her  maid  to  dress  her.  Her  mourning  dress 
had  been  brought  home  the  day  before  yes- 
terday, but  she  had  not  so  much  as  tried  it 
on.  Now  for  the  first  time  she  put  on  her 
clothes  without  a  thought  of  her  appearance. 
She  took  a  carriage  and  went  to  the  Avenue 
d'lena. 

Ill 

was  expecting  to  find  consternation  in 
a  family  crushed  by  their  fate,  and  during 
the  drive  she  reflected  with  astonishment 
that  it  was  not  altogether  painful  to  her  to 
visit  people  in  grief;  in  her  inmost  heart  she 
would  rather  meet  the  little  de  Blauve  girls 
mourning,  unhappy,  than  her  consolatory 
friends,  overflowing  with  kind  and  beautiful 
words,  but  not  personally  sorrowing.  "It  is 
not  the  sight  of  happiness  that  consoles  us  in 
our  sorrows,"  she  said  to  herself,  "but  to 
come  into  touch  with  a  grief  that  is  like  our 


own/3 


[42] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


The  little  de  Blauves  were  not  yet  in 
black.  The  eldest  wept  a  little  when  Odette 
kissed  her  with  flowing  tears — for  Odette 
was  thinking  of  her  own  grief — but  the  little 
girls  were  not  at  all  prostrated,  and  there 
was  even  something  radiant  in  their  ex- 
pression. 

"What  is  it  all  about,  dear  children?" 
asked  Odette. 

Then  they  clapped  their  hands  and  said 
that  their  brother  had  just  landed  from  his 
island  and  was  up-stairs  washing  himself, 
and  that  he  had  received  his  mother's  per- 
mission to  enlist. 

"To  enlist!"  exclaimed  Odette.  "Why, 
how  old  is  he,  the  poor  little  fellow  ?" 

"He  is  almost  seventeen,"  said  the  eldest 
girl.  "  Papa  is  dead,  he  must  replace  him." 

"And  what  does  the  big  brother  say  to 
that?" 

"Oh,  he  is  delighted.  He  had  begged  to  en- 
list as  soon  as  mobilization  was  declared,  but 
papa  would  not  consent;  he  said:  'You  will 
go  with  your  class,  when  the  time  comes;  it 
will  not  be  long." 

[43 1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


The  big  brother  appeared,  coming  down- 
stairs. He  was  a  fine  boy,  delicate,  surpris- 
ingly like  his  mother's  portrait,  painted  in 
her  youth,  which  hung  above  the  great  sofa. 
He  rushed  past  like  a  bomb,  exclaiming:  "I 
must  hurry  to  the  recruiting-office !"  No 
more  was  said  about  the  dead  father,  and 
yet  Odette  knew  that  he  was  adored  by  all 
his  family.  Only  to  the  governess,  a  con- 
fidential person  well  on  in  years,  did  Odette 
say  a  word  about  the  event. 

"It  is  a  great  honor,"  said  the  govern- 
ess. 

"Do  they  know  how  he  was  killed  ?" 

"A  bomb,  which  at  the  same  time  killed 
seventeen  men  who  were  near  him." 

It  was  fearlessly  said  in  the  presence  of  the 
children.  Not  one  of  the  little  ones  showed 
the  least  emotion,  while  Odette  shuddered 
through  her  whole  body.  She  asked  after  the 
mother. 

"Mama  writes  that  the  mortars  send  a 
regular  hail;  she  is  almost  deafened  with 
them.  The  noise  disturbs  her  in  her  work. 
They  jump,  at  times,  as  over  a  skipping- 

[44] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


rope,  she  writes.  .  .  .  She  has  also  some 
Boches  to  wait  upon  her;  did  you  know  ?" 

And  that  was  all.  Odette  looked  at  the 
dead  man's  portrait,  opposite  that  of  the 
Red  Cross  nurse,  who  was  jumping,  at  this 
moment,  at  the  sound  of  the  marmites,  and 
had  just  sent  her  young  son  to  the  firing- 
line,  casting  at  least  one  more  de  Blauve  in- 
to the  furnace  that  had  consumed  his  father. 
Monsieur  de  Blauve  had  not  been  painted  in 
uniform;  he  showed  only  the  good  face  of  a 
clever  and  kindly  man.  It  must  have  been  in 
all  tranquillity,  without  uttering  a  single 
grand  word,  that  he  had  prepared  his  whole 
family  for  the  eventualities  of  war;  and  his 
children,  to  the  last  one,  were  as  ready  to  die 
as  to  go  on  a  walk,  or  to  church. 

IV 

VEDETTE  went  away  disconcerted.  Not  a 
word  had  been  said  about  her  Jean,  who  also 
had  died  heroically.  But  what  had  they  said 
about  the  other  hero,  Commandant  de 
Blauve,  whose  death  had  brought  her  there  ? 

[45] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Men  disappear;  they  are  replaced;  a  mem- 
ory of  them  remains,  which  is  henceforth 
called  "honor,"  and  which  does  not  admit  of 
emotion.  That  was  precisely  what  certain  of 
her  friends  had  already  said  to  her.  They  had 
seemed  to  know  that  in  advance,  but  Odette 
— no.  She  thought,  as  she  returned  home,  of 
that  bloody  sunset  over  the  sea,  upon  which 
she  had  gazed  at  Surville  on  August  i,  and 
during  which  she  had  had  the  impression 
that  she  was  entering  a  new  world. 

She  found  three  letters  in  the  vestibule; 
one,  belated,  from  a  friend  in  the  country, 
who  had  only  just  heard  of  the  death  of 
Lieutenant  Jacquelin,  and  who  "compli- 
mented" her,  basing  her  consolation  upon 
"the  honor  with  which  she  saw  her 
adorned."  The  others  were  from  strangers 
charged  to  announce  to  her  that  the  hus- 
band of  a  friend  who  lived  in  Versailles,  and 
that  of  another  in  Bourg-la-Reine,  had  just 
been  killed. 

Odette  sank  down  upon  the  divan,  her 
head  feeling  bruised  as  if  she  had  bumped  it 
against  the  wall;  killed,  killed — then  there 
[46] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


were  dead  men  everywhere  ?  And  she  felt  a 
dark  rancor  toward  all  those  fatal  events 
that  fell  upon  her  so  furiously  to  disturb  her 
grief,  her  personal  grief. 

She  saw  again  those  three  men  of  whose 
loss  she  had  been  told  that  very  day — in  a 
single  half-day — Commandant  de  Blauve,  a 
magnificent  man,  a  man  without  a  blot,  "  a 
type  of  Plutarch"  as  he  had  been  called,  al- 
ways with  the  added  words,  "characters 
such  as  his  were  no  longer  made";  then 
Jacques  Graveur,  him  of  Versailles,  a  good 
comrade  of  Jean's,  one  who  never  made  an 
ado  about  anything,  and  passed  for  none  too 
serious;  it  appeared  that  he  had  saved  his 
whole  company  by  coolness  and  the  sacrifice 
of  himself;  Louis  Silvain,  he  of  Bourg-Ia- 
Reine,  had  brought  his  captain  in  upon  his 
shoulders,  across  two  hundred  metres  of  open 
ground  under  a  hail  of  grape-shot,  had  come 
within  three  metres  of  his  trench,  when  a  ball 
passed  through  his  body — but  the  officer  was 
saved.  He  had  been,  in  ordinary  life,  a  big 
fellow,  with  no  other  occupation  than  to 
haunt  the  theatres,  play  at  the  races,  and 

[47] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


drink  cocktails  at  the  bars.  .  .  .  Such  differ- 
ent figures,  suddenly  united  in  a  similar  act, 
for  which  some  of  them  had  from  all  time 
been  prepared,  the  others  not  at  all — the 
strangeness, the  incomprehensibility  of  it  all! 

She  must  write  letters  of  condolence — 
she,  who  had  received  so  many !  While  she 
was  writing  to  the  others  she  was  thinking 
especially  of  her  Jean;  she  felt  a  certain  fas- 
cination in  writing  of  grief;  she  dwelt  upon  it 
too  much  at  length;  it  would  be  apparent  to 
the  wives  to  whom  she  wrote  that  she  was 
thinking  only  of  herself.  .  .  .  But  each  of 
them  would  have  done  the  same,  and  would 
forgive  her. 

All  through  the  day  the  memory  of  Jean 
shook  off  from  her  the  haunting  thought  of 
the  three  other  dead  men.  She  consulted  a 
map  of  the  Touring  Club  of  which  she  had 
sometimes  made  use  with  her  husband  in 
their  automobile  drives.  The  spot  where 
Jean  had  fallen  was  not  far  from  a  highway 
over  which  they  had  often  driven.  "Perhaps 
I  saw  one  day  the  very  spot  where  his  body 
is  lying  to-day.  .  .  ."  Then  followed  endless 
[48] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


despairing  reveries.  How  had  she  not  fore- 
seen the  possibility  of  the  event — of  the  war, 
at  least  ?  Yet  war  had  often  been  discussed  in 
her  presence,  at  the  time  of  the  alarms  of 
Agadir,  of  Casablanca,  even  of  Tangier, 
when  she  was  a  young  girl.  Then  things  were 
possible,  things  which  perhaps  might  happen 
to-morrow,  of  which  people  were  talking  to- 
day, and  to  which  her  mind  had  been  her- 
metically closed  ?  War,  war !  She  used  to 
know  old  people  who  talked  about  it;  yes, 
because  they  had  seen  it.  And  they  were 
tiresome.  Young  people  didn't  believe  in 
such  things.  She  tried  to  excuse  herself;  then 
she  pronounced  herself  guilty.  Why  had  they 
usually  avoided  people  who  talked  of  serious 
things  ?  And  why  had  they  considered  as 
clever  those  who  ridiculed  everything  ?  Sud- 
denly she  thought  of  "Monsieur's  linen," 
"Monsieur's  wardrobe,"  of  all  those  belong- 
ings of  his  which  would  never  again  be  used, 
never.  .  .  .  Should  she  go  on  leaving  them 
all  in  their  places  ?  Should  she  do  away  with 
them  ?  Or  should  she  put  them  all  away  in  a 
closet,  a  reliquary  ? 

[49] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


She  was  at  that  point  in  her  reflections 
when  Amelia  entered,  in  tears : 

"The  son  of  the  concierge,  madame  !" 

"Well,  what?" 

"He  too,  madame !" 

Then  the  details;  the  unlucky  fellow  had 
been  buried  alive  in  an  upheaval  caused  by 
a  bomb,  and  had  been  dug  out  only  too 
late.  And  Amelia  began  to  talk  of  her  hus- 
band, as  if  it  had  been  he  who  was  buried 
alive. 

When  a  few  days  passed  without  tidings  of 
more  deaths,  all  the  women  grew  calm  and 
began  to  hope.  When  a  man  whom  they 
knew  was  killed,  each  one  saw  in  him  her 
husband,  her  father,  her  cousin,  her  son;  all 
the  men  were  wept  for  in  advance  in  the  per- 
son of  the  one  who  had  fallen.  If  any  one  had 
said  to  these  women:  "But  there  are  thou- 
sands falling  every  day,  thousands!"  they 
would  have  opened  their  eyes  wide,  only 
partly  terrorized,  for  they  had  not  yet  be- 
come accustomed  to  the  new  condition  of 
things.  The  one  who  should  maintain  that 
the  war  would  not  be  over  in  a  few  weeks 

[50] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


would  be  considered  a  bad  patriot,  or  an  ill- 
timed  jester. 

The  next  morning  a  new  catastrophe; 
Pierre  de  Prans,  otherwise  Pierrot,  he  who 
had  brought  the  news  of  Jean's  death,  had 
been  brought  to  Val-de-Grace  hospital  in  a 
very  alarming  condition.  His  orderly,  a  fine 
fellow,  who  was  wounded  at  the  same  time, 
was  as  good  as  dead.  Pierrot  had  a  bullet  in 
the  breast,  one  lung  laid  bare,  and  a  broken 
arm.  His  orderly  had  stanched  his  wounds 
under  a  violent  bombardment,  filling  up  the 
enormous  cavity  with  bandages  snatched 
from  the  dead  who  surrounded  them,  then 
both  had  remained  for  six  hours,  their  heads 
in  a  vile-smelling  hole  under  a  paving-stone, 
their  bodies  hidden  by  bushes.  In  the  course 
of  the  night,  hearing  the  French  language 
spoken,  they  had  kicked  with  their  feet  and 
the  stretcher-bearers  had  drawn  them  out, 
both  still  living. 

The  narrative  of  these  particulars  pro- 
duced a  worse  effect  upon  Odette  than  tid- 
ings of  death ;  the  more  as  some  one  had  the 
lightness  to  say  in  her  presence:  "Much 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


better  to  be  shot  dead  at  an  unexpected 
moment  than  to  endure  such  long  and  cruel 
agony." 

"That  is  a  fine  idea!"  retorted  Odette. 
"Much  better  to  be  alive  than  dead." 

Notwithstanding  the  sadness  of  these 
visits  of  friends  when  there  was  always  some 
new  death  to  weep  for,  deaths  which  had 
occurred  under  the  most  frightful  circum- 
stances, Odette  felt  that  no  other  sorrow  was 
equal  to  her  sorrow;  and  she  detested  them 
all,  not  as  losses  hateful  to  endure,  not  as 
making  part  of  a  national  calamity  the  like 
of  which  had  never  been  before,  but  as  un- 
welcome events  intruding  themselves  be- 
tween her  and  her  own  grief.  She  desired  to 
be  alone  with  her  sorrow,  and  she  resolved 
henceforth  to  know  nothing  of  all  the  rest. 

One  idea  possessed  her  during  several 
days:  to  see  the  place  where  Jean  lay  buried. 
Oh !  if  she  could  also  see  that  where  he  re- 
ceived his  death-blow !  She  appealed  to  three 
or  four  influential  persons  of  her  acquain- 
tance, hung  over  the  telephone.  What  she 
asked  was  to  the  last  degree  impossible. 

[52] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Word  came  to  her  from  the  Minister  that  it 
would  be  easier  for  her  to  go  to  Berlin,  pass- 
ing through  Switzerland  after  procuring  the 
necessary  papers,  than  to  reach  her  hus- 
band's tomb,  near  as  it  was.  Then  it  seemed 
to  her  that  the  government,  even  more 
than  death,  had  robbed  her  of  her  husband 
by  means  never  practised  before,  the  re- 
fined cruelty  of  which  had  been  invented 
for  her  alone. 


H 


,ER  old  friend,  La  Villaumer,  had  come 
to  make  her  a  brief  visit  of  condolence.  He 
was  the  only  man  of  their  former  group  of  in- 
timates left  in  Paris,  because  of  his  years. 
Now  he  came  to  see  her  again. 

"  I  do  not  come  seeking  to  console  you,  my 
friend.  If  I  am  making  a  mistake,  turn  me  to 
the  door.  In  my  mind  there  is  no  consolation 
for  you;  you  are  an  unfortunate  woman. 
You  must  not  ask  much  of  life,  do  you  see  ? 
You  have  known  happiness.  To  most  people 
happiness  is  unknown.  Let  those  to  whom  it 
[S3  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


is  a  stranger  deceive  themselves  with  words 
and  attitudes;  as  for  you,  weep  for  all  you 
have  lost;  weep;  what  you  have  lost  is  worth 
all  tears." 

"Thank  you,  my  friend;  do  not  feel  that 
you  are  obliged  to  make  a  heroine  of  me,  you 
of  all  others  !  You  know,  of  all  others,  that  I 
am  not  a  heroic  soul,  but  simply  a  woman 
who  loves/' 

"You  are  the  purest  woman  whom  I  have 
known,  in  the  sense  that  you  are  the  most 
natural.  You  were  born  in  a  terrestrial  para- 
dise, and  until  now  you  have  lived  in  one. 
You  have  not  been  put  outside  the  gate  for 
some  misdeed  by  the  angel  with  the  fiery 
sword;  a  hurricane  has  arisen  and  devas- 
tated the  garden." 

"But  I  am  none  the  less  outside  of  the 
gate!" 

"I  recognize  that.  There  would  be  no  use 
in  seeking  to  deny  it,  and  it  is  all  in  vain  to 
say  to  you  that  if  others  are  less  vividly 
aware  of  being  outside  the  gate  it  is  be- 
cause they  never  lived  in  the  garden,  like 
you." 

tS4l 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"But  they  tell  me  that  everything  is 
changed." 

"They  are  right,  and  you  see  it  clearly  be- 
cause you  are  outside  of  Eden,  which  you 
had  never  left  before.  It  is  only  that  some  of 
them  accept  the  change  quickly  because 
they  were  prepared  for  it,  and  others  be- 
cause they  are  less  sensitive  than  you." 

"Then,  if  such  a  change  exists,  does  that 
mean  that  I  should  cease  to  mourn  my  hus- 
band?" N 

"No;  but  the  day  will  come  when  you  will 
mourn  him  more.  Remember  what  I  say: 
you  will  mourn  him  more.  That  is  the  way 
in  which  you  will  take  your  part  in  the 
change." 

"More  !"  ejaculated  Odette.  "Is  it  possi- 
ble ?  I  do  not  understand  you." 

"I  mean  by  'more*  another  manner  of 
mourning,  which  you  will  doubtless  find 
more  endurable.  Let  us  not  talk  more  about 
it  now,  but  keep  in  mind  what  I  have 
said." 

She  shrank  more  and  more  from  society, 
till  she  could  endure  neither  news  nor  the 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


face  of  a  friend.  She  caused  herself  to  be 
denied  at  the  door — forbade  her  maid  to 
speak  to  her  of  the  war,  even  to  bring  in  the 
newspapers.  She  wished  to  hear  nothing. 

Then  Paris  became  odious  to  her  because 
she  could  not  keep  herself  sufficiently  in  re- 
tirement. Since  she  was  not  permitted  to  go 
and  stretch  herself  upon  Jean's  tomb,  like  a 
faithful  dog,  she  decided  to  seek  a  refuge 
where  she  could  think  only  of  Jean,  weep  for 
him  in  solitude,  live  only  in  his  memory, 
stun  herself  with  her  own  grief,  give  herself 
body  and  soul  to  this  grief  from  which  no 
earthly  power  had  the  right  to  tear  her. 

She  thought  of  returning  to  Surville, 
where  Jean  had  bidden  her  good-by,  where 
she  had  spent  those  last  weeks  with  him, 
those  beloved  days  of  the  end  of  the  world. 
To  find  herself  there  in  present  circum- 
stances would  be  atrocious  pain;  so  much  the 
better !  There  was  only  one  sort  of  torture 
that  she  feared;  that  which  should  forbid  her 
to  live  in  intimate  union  with  the  memory  of 
Jean.  To  suffer,  to  suffer  even  to  martyrdom, 
to  the  martyrdom  which  Jean's  death  was 

[56] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


causing  her,  this  was  the  greatest  good  for 
which  she  could  ask. 
Odette  set  out  for  Surville. 


VI 


I 


T  was  the  end  of  October.  The  war,  still 
violent  and  deadly  along  all  that  line  of  con- 
flict which  was  called  the  battle  of  the  Aisne, 
was  becoming  more  terrible  in  the  north, 
and  was  being  carried  over  into  Belgium,  as 
at  the  beginning.  Universal  anguish,  for  a 
time  checked  by  the  victory  of  the  Marne, 
was  as  acute  as  in  the  first  days.  Surville,  on 
the  seashore,  could  not  but  be  deserted  and 
sad  at  this  season.  The  Hotel  de  Normandie 
closed,  the  public  houses  that  were  open  far 
from  comfortable,  the  best  way  to  be  alone 
and  not  hear  war  talk  from  morning  till 
night  was  to  rent  a  small  villa.  A  pavilion 
was  recommended;  it  was  separated  from  the 
street  by  a  row  of  poplars  with  yellowing 
foliage  and  a  narrow  grass-plot  where  two 
pergolas  were  in  summer  covered  with  climb- 
ing roses.  At  this  season  the  dull  melancholy 

[57] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


of  this  abode  was  accentuated  by  the  silence 
of  the  dead  town.  Odette  found  that  it 
suited  her.  No  sooner  had  she  arrived  than 
she  had  made  a  pilgrimage  under  the  closed 
windows  and  drawn-down  blinds  of  the  room 
that  she  had  occupied  with  Jean.  The  wind 
was  blowing  from  the  country,  driving  the 
heavy  clouds  out  to  sea;  the  old  Casino, 
once  so  gay,  was  boarded  up;  at  the  door 
there  still  hung  a  poster  announcing  the 
races.  Odette  followed  the  alley,  passed  over 
the  dunes  between  the  deserted  tennis- 
courts,  and  went  down  to  the  beach,  where 
she  could  indulge  in  the  bitterness  of  un- 
mingled  grief. 

This  was  where  she  had  planted  her  tent 
and  lived  with  Jean  through  a  fortnight  of 
sunny  days,  in  utter  abandonment  to  a  de- 
light that  arose  from  the  earth  or  fell  down 
from  the  magnificent  sky.  Children  had  been 
playing  about;  excited  little  dogs  had  been 
barking  to  coax  them  to  throw  a  pebble  into 
the  sea.  They  had  ceased  their  indolent  re- 
pose only  to  plunge  into  the  sea,  swimming 
side  by  side  with  delight. 

[58] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


To-day  the  beach  was  abandoned,  and 
seemed  to  stretch  away,  gray  and  monoto- 
nous, to  the  end  of  the  world.  Odette  seated 
herself  under  the  shelter  of  the  dune  and 
uttered  the  beloved  name  of  Jean.  The  rag- 
ing wind  carried  it,  like  a  flake  of  foam, 
toward  that  distant  Havre  where  a  number 
of  transports  were  lying  in  the  roadstead. 
The  coachman  who  brought  her  from  the 
train  had  pointed  them  out  to  her:  they 
had  brought  over  British  troops;  an  average 
of  fifty  to  fifty-five  vessels  was  arriving 
every  day.  The  war !  Here,  too,  here  again, 
when  she  had  hardly  left  the  train,  she 
had  been  reminded  of  it. 

Nevertheless,  the  hours  passed  and  no 
one  spoke  of  it,  to  her  at  least.  The  monot- 
onous sound  of  the  sea  soothed  her,  and  the 
sea,  notwithstanding  the  troop-ships  over 
there,  seemed  like  something  grand,  entirely 
foreign  to  all  the  human  butchery.  Odette 
rested  her  eyes  on  the  limitless  plain,  ever 
restless  and  sad.  But  this  sadness  was  allied 
to  her  own,  and  at  the  same  time  something 
immense,  majestic,  and  superhuman  seemed 

tS9l 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


to  enter  the  depths  of  her  still  rudimentary 
consciousness  of  the  dawn  of  a  new  time. 
She  would  have  remained  there  for  hours 
if  the  approach  of  evening  had  not  rendered 
intolerable  the  sense  of  despair  suggested  by 
the  scene,  and  if  the  rain  had  not  begun  to 
fall  in  torrents. 

Odette  took  one  of  the  paths  leading  back 
to  the  town. 

Hardly  had  she  reached  it  when  she  was 
surprised  to  see  through  the  driving  wind 
and  rain  that  buffeted  her,  many  illuminated 
buildings  where  she  had  expected  only  the 
shadows  of  a  sleeping  city.  That  was  the 
Casino,  which  she  had  lately  seen  shut  up 
by  boards  !  And  that  was  the  Grand  Hotel, 
all  twinkling  with  light !  She  had  to  round 
the  corner  of  the  latter  to  reach  her  cottage, 
and  by  degrees  as  she  approached  it  she  saw 
a  swarm  of  human  beings,  became  aware 
of  a  commotion  in  the  vast  building  which 
had  seemed  so  funereal.  Men  with  bandaged 
heads,  with  arms  in  slings,  men  walking  on 
crutches;  and  the  white  head-dresses  and  red 
crosses  of  nurses;  it  was  a  hospital.  The  wind 
brought  its  odors  to  her — the  smell  of  tine- 

[60] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


ture  of  iodine,  of  cooking  and  an  indescrib- 
able unsavoriness. 

She  drew  near,  passed  beneath  the  win- 
dows. The  sight  was  not  so  heart-breaking 
as  she  would  have  expected.  The  nurses, 
some  of  them  young,  wore  a  smile;  if  certain 
wounded  men  were  stretched  out,  inert, 
others,  seated  on  their  beds,  were  quietly 
chatting,  calling  across  to  one  another;  a 
great  burst  of  boyish  laughter  took  her  by 
surprise,  while  at  the  same  moment  she  saw, 
close-pressed  to  the  window-pane,  directly 
under  the  electric  light,  the  pitiful,  waxen 
face  of  a  sort  of  Lazarus  rising  from  the 
tomb.  She  became  aware  that  the  other 
building,  opposite,  was  equally  crowded; 
she  saw  at  the  door  an  orderly  in  uniform, 
and  the  inscription  on  white  linen:  "Sup- 
plementary Hospital."  She  had  thought  to 
flee  from  the  war;  everything  was  bringing 
it  to  her.  The  pavilion  that  she  had  selected, 
with  its  green  lawns,  its  poplars,  its  pergolas, 
was  situated  not  far  from  these  hospitals. 
All  day  long  she  would  see  only  men  who 
had  been  in  the  war ! 

Somewhat  disheartened,  she  returned 
[61  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


home.  It  was  not  what  she  had  expected  to 
find  here.  Two  telegrams  were  awaiting  her; 
she  opened  them  listlessly — no  news  could 
be  of  serious  moment  to  her.  Both  of  them 
announced  the  death  of  young  men  whom 
she  knew  intimately,  old  friends  of  her  hus- 
band; the  first,  an  aviator  crushed  under  his 
machine;  the  second,  killed  on  the  banks  of 
the  Yser. 

The  next  morning  several  letters  brought 
to  her  details  of  this  twofold  loss.  The  first 
of  these  young  men,  whom  she  remembered 
to  have  had  at  her  house  not  three  months 
before,  had  joined  in  aerial  conflict  with  an 
enemy  machine,  at  an  altitude  of  two  thou- 
sand metres;  despairing  of  overcoming  it  by 
shots  of  grape,  he  had  dashed  upon  it,  crush- 
ing his  own  screw,  but  had  also  seen  his  ad- 
versary wrecked  as  they  fell  to  earth  to- 
gether. It  was  one  of  the  first  exploits  of  the 
kind;  its  effect  upon  the  imagination  was 
great.  The  other  victim  of  the  day,  an  of- 
ficer by  profession,  after  having  his  shoulder 
crushed  and  his  useless  arm  bound  to  his 
body  by  withes,  had  continued  for  an  hour 

[62] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


to  command  his  company,  until  a  bomb  had 
scattered  him  in  fragments. 

Odette  shuddered.  The  heroism  touched 
her,  as  it  touched  every  one;  but  these  fine 
deeds,  these  multiplied  deaths,  overshad- 
owed the  case  of  her  husband,  blotted  it  out; 
the  death  of  Lieutenant  Jacquelin  was  fad- 
ing from  the  general  memory;  other  deaths 
were  making  more  of  a  stir  than  his;  as  the 
war  became  more  and  more  furious  it  seemed 
to  relegate  its  earlier  stages  to  a  long-past 
time,  somewhat  inferior  to  the  later  tragedy. 
Lieutenant  Jacquelin  had  been  killed  in  the 
first  days  of  the  war,  of  a  war  still  fought  in 
old-fashioned  way.  The  miseries  of  the 
trenches  under  the  autumn  rains  was  an- 
other sort  of  war,  one  which  alone  seemed 
to  be  true  war.  The  headlong  rush  of  the 
enemy  on  the  Yser,  of  which  people  were 
better  informed  than  of  the  earlier  invasion 
at  the  Marne,  arrested  and  absorbed  the 
public  mind.  Odette  felt  this,  and  though 
she  was  determined  that  no  thought  of  glory 
should  mingle  with  her  grief,  the  idea  of 
glory  and  of  the  gigantic  struggle  that  was 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


going  on  did  penetrate  her  mind  in  spite  of 
herself,  by  reason  of  the  diminution  which 
the  prestige  of  her  own  hero  was  suffering. 
She  had  never  dreamed  of  rinding  a  cause 
of  pride  in  what  he  had  done;  one  single 
thought  had  absorbed  her:  that  her  Jean, 
her  love,  was  dead.  In  her  wounded  pride 
she  was  hurried  into  saying  to  herself:  "  He 
died  nobly,  he  had  a  beautiful  death,  he 
too!"  Yet  the  universal  chorus  seemed  to 
reply:  "Since  him,  others  have  done  bet- 


ter." 


She  wrote  to  her  newly  widowed  friends 
in  words  of  exaggerated  praise,  affecting  not 
to  speak  at  all  of  her  personal  sorrow.  It  was 
a  gratuitous  effusion  of  temper,  for  the 
widows  did  not  find  her  praises  at  all  ex- 
travagant, and  never  observed  Odette's  re- 
serve as  to  her  own  case. 

She  decided  not  to  leave  the  house,  that 
she  might  see  nothing,  hear  nothing,  learn 
nothing.  For  a  while  she  even  thought  of 
notifying  the  post-office  not  to  forward  her 
correspondence;  but  she  was  always  hoping 
that  the  Minister  would  send  her  a  permit 
[64] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


to  visit  Jean's  grave.  Jealously  she  shut  her- 
self up  with  the  memory  of  her  husband. 

Everything  irritated  her;  everything  was 
odious  to  her;  everything  seemed  to  con- 
spire to  raise  between  her  and  the  beloved 
memory  a  barrier  of  bleeding  corpses,  a 
screen  upon  which  were  portrayed  horrors 
invented  by  a  satanic  imagination,  together 
with  sentences  of  exalted  morality  unknown 
to  her  and  whose  new  radiance  blinded  her. 

Stamping  her  foot,  tearing  the  handker- 
chief with  which  she  was  stanching  her 
tears,  she  declared  to  herself  that  she  would 
henceforth  live  only  for  Jean  and  by  him. 
She  kissed  the  photographs  that  she  had 
brought  with  her.  She  stretched  herself  upon 
a  lounge,  engulfing  herself  in  the  torturing 
memory  of  him.  For  one  day,  several  days, 
a  week,  perhaps  longer,  she  would  be  able 
to  live  upon  only  the  thought  of  him.  She 
would  open  neither  letters  nor  despatches 
that  might  come;  if  she  was  late  with  her 
condolences,  her  congratulations,  what  did 
it  matter  ? 

The  idea  of  military  glory  entered  her 
[65  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


mind  and  suggested  to  her  the  hope  of  erect- 
ing a  monument  to  her  husband.  She  was 
caressing  the  thought  when  her  maid  en- 
tered her  room  like  a  gust  of  wind. 

"Madame,  the  wounded!  the  wounded! 
Swarms  of  them  !  In  automobiles,  on  trucks; 
it  appears  that  there  are  twice  as  many  for 
Sousville,  and  the  train  has  carried  as  many 
more  to  Houlgate  and  Cabourg!" 

Amelia  threw  open  the  windows.  The 
train  of  wounded  men  was  passing  the  house. 
Odette  dared  not  forbid  herself  to  look  at 
it. 

Autos  were  rumbling  by,  some  of  them 
covered,  others  displaying  to  the  light  of 
day  a  heap  of  men,  motionless,  bandaged, 
covered  with  clay,  an  agglutinated  mass  of 
flesh  in  which  all  individuality  if  not  all  life 
seemed  to  be  held  in  suspense,  a  cart-load 
of  humanity:  not  a  single  man  but  a  mass 
of  bloody  pulp  in  which  the  suffering  that 
it  covered  must  be  a  common  suffering. 
Then  came  a  truck,  two  trucks,  three.  They 
were  great  drays  across  which  were  placed 
stretchers,  and  on  these  stretchers  were  ex- 
[66] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


tended  what  they  call  the  bedded  wounded, 
those  whose  legs  are  broken,  or  already 
amputated,  or  dreadfully  crushed,  those 
fever-stricken  from  projectiles  received  in 
the  body,  those  with  cloven  skulls,  hastily 
bound  together.  They  were  marine  gunners, 
fotot-soldiers,  blacks ;  tall,  handsome,  Moroc- 
cans with  brown  skins.  Distinguished  from 
all  the  others  by  excess  of  ill  fortune,  they 
were  stretched  out,  straight  and  rigid  like 
corpses  placed  in  order,  at  equal  distances, 
upon  the  marble  slabs  of  a  morgue.  The 
trucks  going  at  a  walk  and  carrying  the 
most  seriously  wounded,  at  each  check,  each 
halt,  each  starting  again,  one  could  hear 
hollow  moans;  sometimes  the  outcry  of  a 
Moroccan,  sharp  like  the  voice  of  a  child 
or  a  woman,  would  make  you  catch  your 
breath,  and  the  country  folk,  crowded  along 
the  sidewalks,  would  whimper  as  if  they 
themselves  were  being  tortured. 

Amelia,  who  in  the  beginning  had  been 
chattering  without  ceasing,  was  now  suffo- 
cated with  sobs,  and  her  elbows  upon  the 
window-ledge  was  weeping  silently  over  this 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


procession.  Odette,  hidden  at  another  win- 
dow, wept  like  her  servant,  incapable  either 
of  tearing  herself  away  from  the  sight  or  of 
controlling  her  emotion. 

At  length,  having  closed  the  windows,  the 
two  women  found  themselves  face  to  face 
with  wet  eyes.  Amelia  said: 

"It  is  better  to  be  dead  than  alive." 

Never  had  they  experienced  such  emo- 
tions in  Paris,  where  they  thought  them- 
selves nearer  the  war  because  of  the  number 
of  kilometres  between  them  and  the  front, 
or  because  they  heard  men  deemed  well 
informed  telling  contradictory  news  from 
morning  to  night.  Here  in  this  remote  and 
quiet  corner  they  had  now  touched  the  very 
relics  of  the  hecatomb.  The  eyes  alone  tell 
the  truth ;  words  are  a  small  matter. 

Amelia  could  not  remain  still;  she  ran  to 
the  hospital  after  the  procession.  Never  in 
her  life  had  she  seen  anything  so  exciting. 

On  her  return  she  said  that  she  could 

hardly  recognize  the  entrance  of  the  Grand 

Hotel,  whither  she  had  gone  a  few  months 

before  to  carry  notes  from  Monsieur  or 

[68] 


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Madame  to  M.  X  or  M.  Y  who  were  dead 
now,  like  Monsieur. 

She  brought  back  much  information.  The 
wounded  who  came  that  morning  were  from 
the  Department  of  the  North,  where  a 
frightful  battle  had  been  raging  for  weeks. 
"Some  of  them  talk,  madame;  some  of  them 
say  nothing;  their  eyes  break  your  heart,  like 
poor,  sick  dogs  that  glance  at  you  as  if 
ashamed  and  pretend  to  be  asleep."  "I 
could  see  from  where  I  was,"  she  went  on 
after  a  little,  "the  surgeon  as  he  appeared  to 
be,  all  in  white,  with  a  cap  like  a  cook  and 
bare  arms;  he  received  them  at  the  door  and 
sorted  them  out,  sending  them  up-stairs, 
down-stairs,  to  the  right,  the  left,  pestered 
by  the  nurses,  who  begged  for  them." 

But  Odette  had  not  seen  them  entering 
the  hospital,  and  this  did  not  interest  her. 
She  was  pursuing  her  own  thoughts. 

"  There  was  one  in  the  procession,"  she 
said,  "one  that  was  lying  down,  who  was  so 
pale,  poor  boy !  He  will  not  go  far." 

She  had  vowed  to  herself  that  she  would 
not  go  out;  she  would  remain  with  her  grief 

[69] 


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the  whole  day,  the  whole  week.  But  imme- 
diately after  luncheon  she  put  on  her  hat  and 
went  to  wander  around  the  hospital. 

A  hedge  separated  the  street  from  the 
great  court  in  which  there  was  still  a  circular 
clump  of  trees  surrounded  with  withered 
summer  flowers;  opposite,  above  another 
hedge,  the  vines  in  a  charming  flower-gar- 
den were  reddening  on  the  pergolas.  Every- 
thing bore  the  impress  of  a  time  of  display 
and  enjoyment,  and  she  felt  that  decora- 
tions like  these  were  henceforth  antiquated, 
absurd. 

Odette  knew  already,  through  Amelia, 
the  disposition  of  each  part  of  the  hospital, 
whose  interior  hum  she  could  hear  from 
without.  She  knew  that  one  flight  up,  at  the 
first  turn,  were  the  typhoids,  nursed  by  a 
Sister  who  for  twelve  years  past,  wherever 
she  might  be  sent,  had  done  nothing  else 
than  care  for  typhoids,  and  go  to  the  nearest 
church  to  put  up  a  little  prayer.  She  knew 
the  situation  of  the  staircase  leading  to  the 
basements,  where  the  food  was  brought  in 
and  the  dead  carried  out.  She  knew  that  at  a 
[70] 


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corner  of  the  building  looking  upon  the  sea 
was  the  operating-theatre,  visible  from  with- 
out. And  in  fact,  passing  by  it,  she  perceived 
a  group  of  white-robed  men  and  women, 
their  sleeves  turned  back,  leaning  over  some- 
thing or  some  one.  Then  she  fled  toward  the 
sea  like  a  coward  and  was  ashamed.  In  real- 
ity, this  assemblage  of  suffering  creatures  at 
once  repelled  and  attracted  her,  producing  a 
complex  sentiment,  unfamiliar  and  incon- 
gruous. 

From  afar  she  looked  at  the  building  and 
its  surroundings.  At  the  sight  of  this  coun- 
tryside, these  villas,  these  hotels,  the  mem- 
ory of  the  past  summer  overpowered  her, 
and  at  the  same  time  she  experienced  a  cruel 
dispelling  of  her  memories  of  the  past  sum- 
mer. Meanwhile  she  stood  there  as  if  hypno- 
tized by  the  great  house  of  suffering.  On  the 
ground  floor,  through  the  glazed  verandas 
she  discerned  a  constant  coming  and  going 
of  white  caps.  And  she  thought  of  the  labors 
which  those  hundred  and  fifty  new  arrivals 
of  the  morning  must  necessitate.  She  was 
seized  with  timidity  at  the  thought  of  ap- 


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preaching  this  august  place.  Before  it  she 
seemed  to  herself  a  profane  person,  idle, 
gloved,  parasol  in  hand,  her  one  interest  her 
personal  grief. 

An  unknown  power  held  her  motionless, 
kept  her  from  going  toward  the  sea,  where 
she  had  hoped  to  meet  her  cruel  and  too- 
much  loved  memories,  and  yet  forbidding 
her  to  return  to  that  place  of  common  suf- 
fering which  she  had  not  made  her  own. 
While  she  stood  there,  hesitating  on  the  lev- 
elled dune,  she  was  shot  through  with  an 
unaccustomed  shiver,  which  frightened  her. 

As  a  pretext  for  again  drawing  near  the 
place  she  told  herself  that  she  desired  to  see 
once  more  the  poor  boy  whom  she  had  seen 
lying  so  pale  on  his  stretcher.  Had  they  re- 
vived him  ?  Sincerely,  she  would  have  loved 
to  know.  But  how  set  about  it  ?  No  sooner 
had  she  returned  to  the  road  that  sur- 
rounded the  glazed  verandas  than  she  lost 
courage  to  present  herself  as  a  curious 
stranger;  men  in  bed,  others  sitting  up, 
would  stare  at  the  newcomer,  young  and 
perhaps  pretty  under  her  crape  veil. 
[72] 


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She  returned  to  her  house  much  more 
agitated  than  if  she  had  met  any  one,  and  let 
Amelia  talk  to  her  of  all  that  she  had  learned 
concerning  not  only  that  hospital,  but  all 
the  hospitals  of  the  region.  She  remembered 
of  all  she  heard  only  the  name  of  a  lady 
whom  she  had  met  in  August  at  the  Hotel 
de  Normandie,  and  who,  it  appeared,  was 
nursing  the  wounded  in  the  neighboring 
hospital,  Madame  de  Calouas. 

She  shut  herself  up  again,  distrustful  of 
the  strange  attraction  that  the  city  of  suffer- 
ing exercised  over  her.  She  talked  to  Jean's 
photograph,  saying  to  it:  "I  will  be  only 
yours,  think  of  nothing  but  of  you."  She 
read  over  again  the  books  that  they  had 
read  together;  or  rather,  she  pleased  herself 
by  telling  herself  that  she  had  read  these 
books  with  Jean.  Or  she  walked  in  her  little 
garden,  making  forty  turns  over  the  tour  of 
the  hedge-bordered  alley,  strewn  with  golden 
flakes  which  the  poplars  shed  like  rain. 
Sometimes  she  would  pause  before  the  lat- 
ticed gate  upon  the  road,  amusing  herself 
with  counting  the  minutes  that  one  might 

[  73  ] 


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stand  there  without  seeing  a  single  passer- 
by. One  day  she  thought  she  recognized 
Mme.  de  Calouas  hastening  past  on  a 
bicycle,  light  and  fleet  as  a  dragon-fly.  And 
she  felt  a  desire  to  see  her  again,  not  on  her 
own  account,  for  she  had  left  upon  her  only  a 
vague  impression,  but  to  talk  to  her  or  hear 
her  talk  of  Jean. 

Vainly  she  watched  for  her.  She  even  per- 
mitted herself  to  walk  out,  in  the  hope  of 
meeting  Mme.  de  Calouas. 

"But,  madame,"  said  Amelia,  "it  is  very 
easy.  Every  one  knows  when  these  ladies 
come  back  and  forth  to  the  hospital.  Ma- 
dame has  only  to  walk  up  and  down  before 
the  great  court." 

It  was  not  till  the  following  Sunday,  at 
eleven  o'clock  mass,  that  Odette  met  Mme. 
de  Calouas  and  spoke  to  her. 

"What!"  exclaimed  Mme.  de  Calouas, 
"you  here !  What  hospital  do  you  belong 
to?" 

Odette  thought  that  the  nurse  had  made  a 
mistake,  intending  to  say:  "Where  are  you 
staying?" 

[74] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"I  am  at  the  Elizabeth  pavilion." 

"Is  that  the  new  auxiliary  post  opened 
for  contagious  diseases  ? " 

"It  is  just  a  little  villa,"  said  Odette  sim- 
ply. "It  is  large  enough  for  me  alone." 

"And  what  are  you  doing  there,  good 
God?" 

"I  came  here,"  said  Odette,  "that  I 
might  mourn  for  my  husband  in  peace." 

Mme.  de  Calouas  assumed  a  suitable  ex- 
pression, but  made  no  reply.  Odette  con- 
tinued: 

"He  was  killed  in  the  end  of  September, 
at  the  head  of  his  company,  going  out  from 
the  village " 

"Yes,  I  heard,"  said  Mme.  de  Calouas. 
"I  ought  to  have  sent  you  a  card;  but  in 
times  like  these— 

"  You  yourself  are  in  mourning,"  observed 
Odette. 

"Oh — I !  I  have  lost  my  husband,  my  two 
brothers,  my  uncle  the  colonel,  several  cous- 
ins— '*  She  waved  her  hand  with  a  gesture 
which  signified:  "They  are  past  counting !" 
Before  leaving  Odette  she  added: 

[75 1 


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"Come  to  see  me  at  the  hospital,  from 
eight  o'clock  to  noon,  and  from  two  to  four. 
From  four  to  six  I  have  another  service  at 
the  Red  Cross,  close  by.  I  will  show  you 
things.  Come." 

For  a  long  time  Odette  hesitated.  Again 
she  shut  herself  up  with  her  adored  memo- 
ries. She  was  irritated  that  Mme.  de  Calouas 
had  not  said  a  word  about  that  exquisite 
man  who  was  her  Jean,  and  whom  she  had 
met  at  the  hotel.  When  she  went  out  it  was 
precisely  at  an  hour  when  she  knew  Mme. 
de  Calouas  to  be  at  her  hospitals.  When  the 
sea-wind  was  too  strong  she  would  walk  in 
the  dull  streets  of  the  deserted  summer  city, 
a  pleasure  resort  in  which  the  word  "plea- 
sure" had  become  strange  and  unfitting. 
The  streets  crossed  at  right  angles;  nearly  all 
of  them  were  bordered  by  hedges  beyond 
which  one  could  see  a  garden,  the  wire  cage 
of  a  tennis-court,  a  Norman  villa,  and  no 
one.  Often,  the  whole  length  of  her  walk  she 
met  only  one  human  being,  a  big  man,  al- 
most impotent,  whose  duty  it  was  to  sweep 
up  the  dead  leaves — an  absurd  duty  since 
[76] 


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the  wind  scattered  them  as  fast  as  he  swept, 
and  the  trees  shed  down  behind  him  an- 
other layer  of  little  golden,  rolling,  dead 
things. 

Sometimes,  walking  daringly,  Odette 
crossed  the  long  terrace,  and  braving  the 
wind  went  as  far  as  to  the  sea. 

At  certain  hours  the  beach  was  covered 
with  men  under  treatment.  You  recognized 
them  by  the  slings  that  supported  their 
arms,  by  their  crutches,  their  bandaged 
heads,  not  often  by  their  uniforms,  of  which 
they  preserved  only  odd  parts.  They  wore 
old  jackets,  knitted  waistcoats,  trousers 
brought  forth  from  old  Norman  ward- 
robes. Some  of  the  men  limped,  others 
wearily  dragged  their  feet  along  the  sand; 
those  who  had  legs  wrestled  with  one  an- 
other, ran  races,  played  like  children.  They 
delighted  in  the  edge  of  the  sea,  gathering 
shells,  and  regaling  themselves  with  the 
slimy  flesh  of  cockles.  Some  of  them  cast 
a  too  expressive  glance  upon  the  young 
woman,  with  an  awkward  word  which  at 
another  time  would  have  made  her  smile. 

[77] 


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It  was  an  amazing  group  of  tatterdemalions; 
within  the  memory  of  man  no  eye  had  ever 
looked  upon  such  a  sight.  It  excited  com- 
passion; and  yet  almost  every  man  in  par- 
ticular had  gained,  without  trying,  the 
manly  merit  of  always  seeming  to  be  in  good 
humor. 

Whenever  she  saw  them  Odette  felt 
moved,  and  at  the  same  time  somewhat 
jealous.  He  had  not  been  washed,  bandaged, 
ministered  to,  nor  even  clothed  in  rags;  he 
had  not  been  able  to  drag  his  mangled  limbs 
along  the  seashore;  he  had  been  killed  out- 
right. She  would  say  to  herself:  "Perhaps 
one  of  these  soldiers  knew  him,  perhaps  he 
saw  him  fall;  he  could  tell  me  the  details, 
could  describe  his  last  days,  his  last  hour, 
his  last  minute."  And  she  grew  faint  at  the 
possibility  of  asking  them,  of  learning. 

The  low  tide,  the  stormy  sky,  the  wind, 
the  grayish  hillsides,  the  transports  on  the 
horizon,  always  this  immense  deserted 
beach,  these  wretched  relics  of  the  war,  and 
she,  disconsolate  widow,  imploring  the  wind 
to  snatch  her  away  and  destroy  her  in  its 

[78] 


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eddies  !  The  constant  reminders  of  the  past, 
the  sight  of  these  same  places,  natural  back- 
ground of  all  the  pleasant  things  of  life ! 
The  thought  of  that  water  which  had 
bathed  the  limbs  of  Jean,  and  of  the  August 
sun,  and  the  restless  multitude,  gay  and 
elegant,  whom  the  many-colored  sweaters 
set  off  like  a  profusion  of  tulips;  the  move- 
ment of  automobiles,  the  music  of  the  or- 
chestra !  Her  heart  ached  at  these  contrasts 
even  more  than  it  had  done  in  Paris.  The 
solitude,  the  approaching  winter,  and  the 
near  contact  with  suffering  aroused  in  her  an 
unwelcome  agitation.  The  restless  air,  dark 
with  cawing  crows,  brought  a  bitter  taste  to 
her  lips,  and  yet  aroused  in  her  an  indescrib- 
able sense  of  splendor. 

VII 

NOTHING  less  than  the  thought  of 
meeting  Mme.  de  Calouas  at  church  on  the 
following  Sunday  before  she  had  paid  her 
promised  visit  could  have  induced  Odette 
to  cross  the  threshold  of  the  hospital. 

[79] 


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She  went  on  Saturday,  between  two  and 
four  o'clock.  An  orderly  wearing  a  corporal's 
bands  detained  her  as  if  her  hand-bag  might 
conceal  incendiary  bombs,  but  was  softened 
on  hearing  the  name  of  Mme.  de  Calouas, 
and  led  her  to  room  74.  Odette  was  kept  a 
long  time  standing  at  the  door  of  room  74;  at 
last  a  doctor  came  out,  carrying  a  case  of  in- 
struments. He  was  followed  by  Mme.  de 
Calouas,  who  said : 

"It  is  too  bad,  dear  madame !  I  beg  you  to 
excuse  me;  one  of  my  patients  detained  me. 
But  now  I  am  at  your  service;  just  let  me 
change  my  blouse  before  taking  you  to  see 
the  wards." 

Her  change  of  costume  was  soon  made, 
and  she  took  Odette  to  a  neighboring  room 
where  a  very  young  nurse  and  two  military 
orderlies  were  with  great  difficulty  holding 
down  a  patient  in  an  attack  of  tetanus.  The 
sick  man's  head  with  its  contracted  jaws 
and  inflexible  neck  reminded  her  of  certain 
"attractions"  of  the  waxworks;  the  up- 
heaved body,  forming  an  arc  from  head  to 
heels,  was  as  rigid  and  unyielding  as  the 

[80] 


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arch  of  a  bridge.  Odette  turned  pale,  and 
Mme.  de  Calouas  said: 

"You  lack  training.  See  this  child  who  is 
nursing  him !  She  isn't  twenty  years  old — a 
mere  girl." 

They  passed  into  another  room,  from 
which  exhaled  a  pestilential  odor. 

"Gangrene  from  the  gas,"  said  Mme.  de 
Calouas.  "  It  is  not  a  perfume  for  the  pocket- 
handkerchief,  far  from  it !  But  one  gets  ac- 
customed to  anything.  With  assiduous  care 
and  absolute  asepsis  we  have  saved  a  cer- 
tain number  of  wounded  who  suffer  from  this 
complication.  We  are  so  fortunate  here  as 
to  have  a  surgeon  who  is  not  in  haste  to  use 
the  knife." 

In  the  long  corridor  nurses,  for  the  most 
part  young,  were  gliding  or  running.  A 
priest,  wearing  his  alb,  was  hastening  to  one 
of  the  rooms.  Carried  along  by  his  speed, 
Mme.  de  Calouas  entered  after  him,  and 
Odette  followed  her. 

It  was  a  comfortable  hotel  bedroom,  hung 
with  brightly  colored  paper;  there  were  two 
women  in  white,  and  on  a  clean  white  bed 
[81  ] 


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lay  a  tall  young  man,  uncovered,  almost  as 
white  as  the  bed,  from  whose  lips  poured  a 
stream  of  blood.  He  had  received  a  fragment 
of  shell  in  the  sinus,  had  been  operated  upon 
that  morning,  and  hemorrhage  had  set  in — 
a  stream  white  and  red,  unlike  anything  she 
had  ever  seen;  it  overwhelmed  her  with 
horror. 

"You  should  apply  a  tampon,"  said  Mme. 
de  Calouas. 

"The  doctor  is  coming,"  replied  one  of 
the  nurses. 

They  were  both  leaning  over  the  white 
body;  one  was  injecting  serum  into  the 
stomach,  the  other  was  applying  a  syringe 
with  ipecac  to  the  thigh.  The  priest  was 
standing  at  the  cadaverous  feet,  anointing 
them  with  the  sacred  oil.  The  doctor  arrived 
and  applied  the  proper  tampons. 

To  Mme.  de  Calouas  this  was  one  of  the 
normal  cases  which  one  meets  on  visiting  a 
military  hospital.  Odette  was  making  every 
effort  to  stand  upright.  She  begged  to  go  out 
in  the  air.  Mme.  de  Calouas  smiled. 

"  It  is  war !  And  we  are  only  in  one  of  the 

[82] 


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rear  hospitals.  There  is  no  rain  of  shells  here. 
Shall  we  visit  the  wards  down-stairs,  if  you 
please?" 

The  vast  wards  were  almost  vacant  at  this 
hour,  for  many  of  the  patients  were  out-of- 
doors. 

"They  recover  rapidly,  if  you  only  knew ! 
One  can  see  the  new  flesh  grow." 

"And  they  return  to  the  firing-line?" 
asked  Odette. 

"They  must,  indeed !" 

A  group  of  four  convalescents  was  play- 
ing a  game  of  cards  on  a  bed.  Others, 
stretched  at  length,  were  reading;  several 
were  sleeping,  some  were  receiving  friends. 
A  photographer  in  a  corner  was  taking  pic- 
tures. 

Beds  and  beds,  and  torn  flesh,  and  per- 
forated limbs,  and  members  sawn  off,  and 
trepanned  skulls  !  And  the  tetanus,  the  gan- 
grene, the  typhus,  and  that  red  torrent  by 
which  the  soul  of  a  man  was  taking  flight, 
amid  all  that  whiteness  ! 

Odette  felt  as  if  she  should  die,  and  left 
the  hospital.  During  all  her  visit  one  ques- 
[83  ] 


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tion  had  been  upon  her  lips:  "Shall  I  find 
here  any  one  who  knew  my  husband  ? " 
What  was  it  that  kept  her  from  uttering  it  ? 
She  could  not  have  told  how  it  was,  but  she 
had  not  so  much  as  pronounced  her  hus- 
band's name.  A  weight  had  seemed  to  be 
crushing  her  during  the  whole  time.  She  had 
felt  overwhelmed  by  the  new  horror.  The 
worst  was  that  when  at  last  she  reached 
home  she  felt  ashamed  to  weep  for  her  own 
sorrow. 

The  fact  also  that  all  that  human  flesh 
had  been  ravaged  for  the  same  cause;  that  of 
those  unhappy  ones  who  were  groaning,  not 
one  thought  of  blaming  the  cause;  and  that 
other  fact  that  one  part  of  humanity,  up- 
right and  able,  was  bending  with  help  over 
the  other,  gasping  part,  forced  her  to 
gather  up  her  disordered  thoughts  and  in 
the  midst  of  her  confusion  to  exclaim: 

"Something  is  changed !" 

That  evening,  at  six  o'clock,  instead  of 
wandering  about  the  streets  in  heavy  sad- 
ness, she  went,  as  Mme.  de  Calouas  had 
begged  her  to  do,  to  evening  prayer  at  the 


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Chapel  of  the  Orphanage,  in  which  the  Red 
Cross  was  now  installed.  It  was  a  convent 
chapel,  reserved  for  nuns,  the  public  being 
admitted  only  behind  a  sort  of  screen  of 
carved  wood,  through  which  could  be  seen 
the  orderly  rows  of  Sisters  and  orphans,  the 
altar  and  the  lights.  She  found  herself  in  the 
midst  of  valid  soldiers;  that  is  to  say,  such  as 
by  one  means  or  another  could  move  from 
place  to  place.  There  were  bandaged  heads, 
arms  in  slings,  stiff  or  deformed  legs, 
crutches.  Odette  was  moved  by  the  singing 
more  than  she  could  have  believed.  Suddenly 
sobs  choked  her,  and  she  wept.  The  men 
turned  toward  this  young  woman  in  mourn- 
ing whom  they  could  hardly  have  helped 
noticing,  and  who  kept  on  wiping  her  eyes. 
She  was  weeping  from  a  natural  need  of 
weeping.  She  was  weeping  for  Jean,  but  also 
she  wept  with  great  pity  for  all  those  lacer- 
ated bodies;  and  for  the  first  time  she  real- 
ized that  these  men,  or  these  fragments  of 
men,  had  come  from  places  where  death  and 
pain  were  of  all  things  the  most  usual. 
Mme.  de  Calouas  heard  and  saw  her,  and 
[85  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


knew  that  Odette  had  come  here  to  weep  for 
her  husband.  As  they  went  out  she  said  to 
her: 

"You  loved  him  much,  then  ?" 
And  by  these  words  Odette  realized  that 
she  had  been  weeping  for  an  immeasurable 
loss,  which  had  left  her  in  a  sense  benumbed. 


VIII 

HIS  did  not  last  long,  and  as  soon  as  she 
reached  home  she  made  honorable  amends 
to  Jean.  She  drove  from  her  every  thought 
except  of  him,  denouncing  the  universal  con- 
spiracy against  her  beloved  memories.  What 
could  she  do  to  mitigate  the  misfortunes  of 
others,  however  great  and  innumerable  they 
might  be  ?  Those  women  who  seemed  to 
deny  their  own  griefs  filled  her  with  a  sort  of 
dismay. 

She  passed  hours  of  sleeplessness  revolving 
these  ideas,  determining  at  whatever  cost  to 
master  herself,  and  forget  the  whole  dis- 
tracted world.  She  fell  asleep  vowing  hence- 
[86] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


forth  to  belong  wholly  to  the  memory  of 
Jean. 

Yet  the  next  morning,  Sunday,  coming 
out  of  church,  she  found  no  rest  till  she  had 
met  Mme.  de  Calouas  and  asked  her: 

"Could  I  be  of  use  to  you  at  the  hos- 
pital?" 

"I  was  expecting  you,"  Mme.  de  Calouas 
replied.  "I  would  do  nothing  to  bring  you 
before  the  time;  but  I  am  glad  that  you  wish 
to  come.  I  will  begin  by  taking  you  under  my 
wing;  for  your  initiation  you  shall  be  my 
helper.  Does  that  suit  you  ?" 

"Of  course.  I  do  not  know  how  to  do 
anything." 

"When  will  you  come  ?" 

"When  you  please." 

"Well,  I  will  leave  you  your  Sunday.  Or 
rather,  come  with  me  now,  that  I  may  at 
once  get  you  received  by  the  head  doctor, 
and  find  a  provisional  cap  and  blouse  for 
you.  The  rest  will  be  for  to-morrow  morn- 
ing." 

Odette  saw  the  head  doctor;  she  tried  on 
the  nurse's  costume  which  her  friend  would 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


lend  to  her  until  she  could  procure  one;  and 
at  eight  o'clock  the  next  morning,  after  hav- 
ing signed  an  engagement,  she  entered  the 
hospital,  almost  as  if  she  was  entering  a 
convent. 

At  that  hour  the  hired  women  were  spong- 
ing the  floors  with  wet  cloths,  and  through 
the  wards  resounded  the  click  of  buckets  set 
down,  the  metal  handle  falling  against  their 
sides.  The  floors  exhaled  moisture.  The  sea 
air,  entering  by  the  open  windows,  swept  out 
the  odor  of  the  sick-room.  Convalescent  men 
were  going  to  the  lavatories;  others  were 
helping  comrades  with  helpless  arms  to  wash 
themselves  upon  their  cots. 

Odette  asked  for  Mme.  de  Calouas,  and 
found  her  before  the  twenty  beds  allotted  to 
her.  A  dozen  of  them  were  occupied  by  seri- 
ously wounded  men,  who  gazed  upon  the 
newcomer  with  embarrassing  steadfastness. 
Mme.  de  Calouas  led  Odette  to  the  room 
where  dressings  were  done,  passing  through 
the  whole  ward,  where  sixty  men  were  ex- 
changing the  morning  greetings  of  the  sol- 
dier, now  rough,  now  amusing.  She  was, 
[88] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


above  all,  surprised  that  the  nurses  paid 
them  no  attention. 

While  giving  instructions  to  her  pupil 
Mme.  de  Calouas  was  busy  disinfecting 
mugs,  unrolling  pieces  of  cotton  and  tearing 
them  into  bits,  counting  piles  of  compresses, 
tubes,  drains.  The  room  exhaled  an  odor 
of  antiseptics,  sweet  and  insipid. 

They  returned  to  the  ward,  and  Mme.  de 
Calouas  made  known  to  her  each  patient  by 
name,  with  certain  indications  as  to  his  case; 
she  begged  Odette  to  wash  this  or  that  one, 
to  make  the  bed  of  an  unfortunate  who,  with 
only  one  arm,  could  not  do  it  alone. 

"Be  careful  what  you  say  to  them,"  she 
whispered  in  her  ear.  "Remember  that  their 
estimate  of  you  will  depend  upon  your  first 
words." 

Odette  observed  that  the  patients  gazed 
at  her  without  once  turning  away  their 
eyes.  She  won  their  approval  by  the  first 
words  she  uttered,  and  by  the  gentleness 
with  which  she  washed  the  faces  of  two  or 
three  helpless  men,  and  she  saw  their  ex- 
pressions change.  Those  eyes  so  full  of 

[89] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


agony,  which  make  unpractised  fingers  trem- 
ble, were  softened.  Her  hands  were  dexter- 
ous, her  face  attractive.  There  was  one  poor 
fellow  whom  she  had  to  wash  from  head  to 
foot,  like  a  new-born  baby,  a  difficult  task 
for  a  beginner.  When  all  was  finished  and  he 
was  wrapped  in  clean  linen  she  was  about  to 
pass  to  another  bed,  when  the  patient  said : 
"Wait,  madame!"  And  she  saw  him  pain- 
fully turn  in  his  bed,  raise  his  sheet,  awk- 
wardly stretch  out  a  suffering  arm  in  the  at- 
tempt at  any  cost  to  reach  the  case  that 
hung  at  the  head  of  the  bed.  She  held  the 
linen  bag  within  his  reach,  and  he,  hesitat- 
ing, fumbling,  blindly  feeling  among  a  litter 
of  things,  a  knife,  letters,  bits  of  bread,  suc- 
ceeded in  extracting  two  photographs,  those 
of  his  wife  and  his  two  little  children.  He 
desired  to  reward  the  new  nurse  for  her  kind 
offices,  and  he  did  his  best  by  introducing 
her  to  his  little  family.  Deeply  touched, 
Odette  praised  the  wife  and  the  two  chil- 
dren, and  thenceforward  the  poor  fellow  was 
her  friend. 

Mme.  de  Calouas  came  to  say  that  the 

[90] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


stretcher-bearers  were  coming  to  carry  "the 
thigh"  to  be  dressed.  Odette  followed  "the 
thigh."  The  new  nurse  was  asked  to  cut 
the  dressing.  She  broke  into  a  cold  perspira- 
tion; she  thought  the  scissors  were  de- 
fective, and  her  remark  provoked  a  smile 
from  all  the  experts  around;  only  the  pa- 
tient looked  at  her  with  an  apprehension 
which  seemed  to  paralyze  her. 

"You  must  learn  to  cut  dressings,"  said 
Mme.  de  Calouas.  "You  will  get  used  to  it; 
just  a  knack." 

Finally  the  steel  succeeded  in  biting 
through  the  damp  compresses.  When  they 
fell  apart  the  wound  appeared.  It  was  an 
open  fracture  of  the  leg,  whence  exhaled  the 
special  sickening  smell  of  osseous  pus.  The 
large  wound  spread  open  like  a  nightmare 
flower  with  thick  petals,  soft  and  viscid, 
covered  with  a  creamy  layer  of  dull  old-rose 
color.  They  washed  it;  the  patient  gritted 
his  teeth;  now  and  again  a  cry  escaped  from 
the  thin  little  brown  face.  When  they  looked 
at  him  he  was  brave  enough  to  smile  and 
say,  "That's  all  right." 

[91  3 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Odette  was  more  ill  than  the  wounded 
man.  As  on  the  previous  evening,  she  asked 
that  she  might  go  out  into  the  air,  and  when 
she  stumbled  at  the  door,  turned  pale,  and 
was  about  to  faint,  the  orderly,  who  under- 
stood these  phenomena,  with  the  help  of  a 
valid  patient  laid  her  all  along  upon  a  mar- 
ble slab.  It  was  only  for  a  moment,  and  she 
returned  to  the  room,  saying,  like  the 
wounded  man:  "That's  all  right."  The  un- 
interrupted process  of  dressing  made  even 
her  forget  the  incident.  A  kindly  woman 
drew  her  into  an  embrasure  and  gave  her  a 
drop  of  cordial. 

At  that  moment  a  man  was  being  carried 
to  the  operating-room.  He  blustered  a  little 
as  he  addressed  to  his  comrades  the  classic 
au  revoir  which  may  so  well  be  an  adieu: 
"I  am  going  to  my  game  of  billiards  I" 

"Try  to  win,  old  fellow,"  they  answered 
from  all  parts  of  the  ward. 

And,  without  flinching,  Odette  was  pres- 
ent at  "her"  first  operation. 

She  returned  home  at  half  past  twelve, 
exhausted,  but  lighter  in  heart  and  satisfied 
with  herself. 

[92] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"Madame  is  pale/*  said  Amelia.  "Ma- 
dame is  the  color  of  the  lamp-shade  when 
the  lamp  is  lighted." 

After  luncheon  she  slept  heavily  for  half 
an  hour,  and  returned  to  the  hospital.  The 
afternoon  was  more  calm,  at  least  until  the 
second  visit  of  the  head  physician,  before 
the  men's  six-o'clock  meal.  She  made  further 
acquaintance  with  her  patients;  she  heard 
them  talk  about  the  war.  She  found  oc- 
casion to  say,  "  My  poor  husband  was  killed 
on  the  22d  of  September,"  but  it  produced 
no  great  effect,  none  of  those  soldiers  hav- 
ing known  Lieutenant  Jacquelin.  Each  told 
about  what  he  had  seen,  and  nothing  else 
seemed  to  him  to  have  a  real  existence. 
She  was  disappointed,  but  by  their  various 
touching  stories  of  what  they  had  been 
through,  she  was  introduced  to  that  war  of 
which  she  had  determined  to  know  nothing 
since  her  husband  was  dead.  The  battles  of 
the  Yser,  the  sufferings  of  the  combatants 
who  had  passed  day  after  day  in  freezing 
water,  the  grotesque  onslaughts  of  the  Ger- 
mans, the  piles  of  dead  under  the  ominous 
skies,  set  her  imagination  to  work.  Always 

[93 1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


thinking  of  her  husband,  she  saw  him  all 
alone  in  the  face  of  those  infuriated  enemies, 
trampled  down  by  them.  ...  He  had  gone 
out  with  drawn  sabre  from  his  little  village, 
at  the  head  of  his  company,  and  he  had  been 
killed  outright.  Before  the  survivors  of  the 
Yser  she  no  longer  dared  speak  of  the  cir- 
cumstance of  the  lieutenant's  death,  beau- 
tiful though  it  was.  This  war  seemed  to  be 
enlarging,  growing  beyond  measure  great. 

They  were  beginning  to  organize  the  hos- 
pital for  the  winter;  certain  persons  insisted 
that  the  war  would  not  be  over  in  six 
months;  others  said  with  conviction:  "Nor 
in  eighteen  months  either !"  But  these  were 
suspected  of  sowing  demoralization.  Yet  the 
English  were  making  preparations  for  three 
years !  From  her  friend  La  Villaumer,  who 
was  still  in  Paris,  Odette  received  letters  in 
which  he  wrote: 

"We  are  like  children,  sometimes  gay, 
laughing  and  gamboling,  at  others  howling, 
no  one  knows  why.  My  dear  friend,  busy 
yourself  with  your  work,  and  don't  read  the 
papers.  As  for  me,  there  is  something  which 

[94] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


impresses  me  more  than  the  monstrous 
movements  of  the  German  colossus :  it  is  the 
soul  of  the  colossus.  It  is  one;  it  has  only  one 
purpose,  which  is  the  greatness  of  the  Ger- 
man nation.  It  is  a  rudimentary  sentiment, 
savage,  primitive,  barbarous,  but  how 
strong !  We  ourselves  are  fighting  because 
we  have  been  attacked,  and  also  to  defend 
ideas  which  do  us  the  greatest  honor:  liber- 
ty, justice,  and  the  like.  We  are  animated 
by  a  very  lively  sentiment  of  the  rights  of 
man.  We  love  humanity;  they,  the  Ger- 
mans, love  Germany.  How  much  more  sim- 
ple it  is,  and  how  it  relieves  them  of  all 
the  scruples  that  hold  us  back  !  And  yet,  in 
the  final  issue,  it  is  he  who  shall  have 
triumphed  by  force  who  will  lay  down  the 
moral  values  of  the  future." 

Thus,  uncertainty,  admiration,  confi- 
dence, scepticism,  and  a  state  of  alarm 
were  concurrently  implanted  in  minds,  and 
Odette,  affected  by  them,  like  every  one 
else,  began  from  that  day  to  be  infected,  as 
with  the  odor  of  the  hospital,  with  this  ir- 
ritating compound. 

[95] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Little  by  little  it  seemed  to  her  that  she 
no  longer  upheld  herself,  but  that  she  let 
herself  be  carried  away,  borne  along  and 
guided  by  the  life  of  the  hospital.  It  was  at 
once  horrible  and  almost  laughable.  A  place 
of  pain,  the  perpetual  reminder  of  enormities 
which  the  human  brain  could  never  have 
conceived,  it  was  also  an  assemblage  dom- 
inated by  youth,  which  saves  all.  In  the  gaze 
of  those  prostrate  wounded,  gaze  which  had 
become  of  so  much  importance  to  her  who 
passed  and  repassed  along  the  bedsides, 
burned  a  flame  disturbing  and  alluring,  re- 
sult of  the  burning  away  of  something  that 
could  not  be  named.  At  times,  one  felt  as  if 
in  certain  of  those  wounded  men  one  saw 
beings  returned  from  the  beyond.  They  had 
seen  what  nothing  had  prepared  them  to 
see,  something  that  confused  them,  both 
their  senses  and  their  judgment.  Some  of 
them  said:  "It  was  hell!"  Others,  much 
more  simple-minded,  merely  said:  "One 
must  have  been  there!"  Certain  of  them, 
without  imagination  or  memory,  living  en- 
tirely in  the  present  moment,  shut  up  with- 

[96] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


in  themselves  an  unconscious  gravity  which 
was  in  strange  contrast  with  their  youthful 
natures.  But  in  a  general  way  a  new  nurse 
like  Odette  could  aver: 

"But  the  wounded  are  not  sad!" 

"Because,"  some  one  would  reply,  "they 
are  all  happy  at  not  being  dead." 

Thus,  day  succeeded  day,  without  soften- 
ing Odette's  personal  sorrow,  but  as  if 
shrouding  it  behind  a  mourning  veil  which 
covered  all  that  she  could  imagine  of  earth's 
surface.  Everything  made  her  think  of  Jean, 
but  she  had  not  time  to  appear  to  be  think- 
ing of  him,  and  she  shrank  from  speaking  of 
him. 

She  led  a  very  active  life.  It  would  happen 
that  just  as  she  sat  down  at  table,  all  alone 
in  the  evening  in  the  Elizabeth  pavilion,  the 
door-bell  would  ring.  It  would  be  one  of  the 
volunteer  employees,  passing  along  on  his 
bicycle  to  notify  the  nurses  that  a  train  of 
one  hundred  and  twenty  wounded  men  was 
announced  to  reach  the  station  at  eleven 
o'clock.  By  half  past  ten  Odette,  who  would 
not  take  a  nap,  and  who  knew  not  what  to 

[97] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


do  at  home,  was  already  at  the  hospital,  in 
her  cap  and  blouse.  The  more  zealous  ones 
were  there,  and  the  more  indolent  ones  as 
well,  welcoming  the  opportunity  to  get  to- 
gether and  gossip.  The  head  physician  was 
coming  and  going,  opening  and  shutting 
doors;  the  doctors  were  arriving  one  by  one; 
the  surgeon,  all  in  white,  his  sleeves  turned 
back  to  the  elbows,  was  talking  with  the 
women.  The  telephone-bell  rang;  it  was  the 
police  commissioner  sending  word  that  the 
train  was  an  hour  late.  A  few  persons  were  in 
despair;  there  were  some  whom  the  matter 
moved  to  laughter.  Every  one  waited.  And 
sometimes  the  train,  instead  of  one  hour, 
was  two  or  three  hours  late.  Resignation  be- 
came general  in  proportion  as  reasons  for 
impatience  accumulated.  In  the  great  hall 
where  they  were  all  assembled  some  seated 
themselves  on  anything  they  could  find, 
others  lay  down  upon  stretchers.  Bright  con- 
versation grew  dim  with  the  lights.  White- 
robed  women,  going  up  or  down  stairs  on 
tiptoe,  seemed  like  angelic  apparitions. 
Through  the  partitions  came  the  heavy 

[98] 


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breathing  of  sleeping  men.  Suddenly  the 
ringing  of  a  bell  startled  every  one;  the  train 
was  drawing  into  the  station  at  last.  The 
lights  were  turned  up.  Ten  minutes  later  the 
first  automobiles  were  sounding  in  the  court. 
The  double-leaved  doors  were  thrown  wide, 
notwithstanding  the  cold,  the  stretcher- 
bearers  rushed  out,  and  in  a  moment,  con- 
trasting with  their  rapid  bounds,  came 
slowly  the  wounded  soldiers,  bleeding, 
bearded,  covered  with  earth,  wan,  ex- 
hausted; some  of  them  half-naked,  some 
with  frozen  feet,  upheld  or  carried  by  sturdy 
fifteen-year-old  lads.  All  were  silent,  a  relig- 
ious respect  hushed  the  words  upon  the  lips. 
This  torn  flesh,  these  rags  of  French  uni- 
form, wrought  in  the  mind  of  every  being 
not  utterly  insensible  a  change  in  his  idea  of 
the  pathetic;  something  of  the  atmosphere 
of  the  firing-line  entered  and  asepticized  ev- 
ery heart. 

The  next  morning  the  sense  of  familiarity 
returned.  But  in  that  one  hour  of  the  dark 
winter  night,  while  the  surgeon,  bending 
over  each  victim,  was  asking  him  almost 

[99] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


tenderly:  "And  you,  my  child?" — some- 
thing august,  an  exhalation  of  the  colossal 
human  sacrifice,  penetrated  into  this  com- 
monplace old  hotel  hall,  sanctifying  it  for 
all  time  to  come.  And  not  one  of  those  men 
or  women  who  had  been  there,  however  ad- 
vanced the  hour  of  the  night,  however  visible 
the  fatigue  on  all  their  faces,  but  was  glad 
for  having  been  there. 

Whence  came  these  wounded  men  ?  From 
Ypres,  from  Arras,  from  Notre-Dame  de 
Lorette.  The  names  called  up  all  that  any 
one  knew,  through  newspapers  and  private 
talk,  of  those  charnel-houses  whose  image 
the  imagination  refuses  to  harbor,  upon 
which  those  who  have  escaped  from  them 
keep  silence. 

Odette,  soapy  brush  in  hand,  forcing  back 
all  repugnance,  doing  as  others  did,  was  help- 
ing to  soothe  agonies  which  humanity  seems 
never  before  to  have  known  or  dreamed 
of.  The  most  shocking  duties  no  longer  re- 
pelled her.  The  very  effort  which  she  was 
compelled  to  make,  by  the  contrast  between 
what  she  was  seeing  and  doing  and  what 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


life  had  formerly  offered  her,  pressed  the 
character  of  the  catastrophe  to  her  mind 
which  lacked  capacity  to  conceive  of  it.  "Is 
it,  then,  so  great  ?"  she  would  wonder.  And 
even:  "Is  there  after  all  anything  great  ?"  For 
no  soul  in  the  world  had  taught  her  this.  The 
inevitable  contrast  with  her  past  life,  all 
for  herself,  for  her  individual  satisfaction, 
seemed  to  dishonor  her  memories,  even  of 
happiness,  making  them  almost  trivial.  This, 
indeed,  was  the  opinion  of  Mme.  de  Calouas, 
but  not  that  of  Amelia,  whom  in  her  solitude 
it  became  sometimes  necessary  to  oppose. 
"Madame  adopts  the  ideas  of  those 
around  her,"  the  maid  would  say;  "it  is  all 
very  well,  but  Madame  may  believe  me:  the 
good  time,  and  the  true  time,  was  before  all 
this,  when  the  poor  men  were  not  preparing 
to  be  made  into  hash." 


IX 


HO  would  have  believed  it  a  year  ago  ? 
Odette  took  the  inclination  to  follow  to  the 
cemetery  the  pitiful  funerals  of  dead  sol- 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


diers,  not  because  it  offered  her  a  pretext  for 
a  walk  into  the  country  in  the  free  air,  for 
she  had  done  that — she,  so  susceptible  to 
cold — all  through  the  black  winter.  But  be- 
fore everything  else  she  was  thinking  that 
she  had  not  followed  her  husband  to  the 
grave.  After  all  that  she  had  endured,  still 
reverent  of  century-old  rites,  not  to  have  fol- 
lowed the  body  of  her  husband  in  a  funeral 
car  to  his  last  abode  seemed  to  her  to  have 
failed  in  a  sovereign  duty.  Alas !  her  hus- 
band's body  had  been  carried  in  no  funeral- 
car,  no  one  had  followed  him  to  the  grave ! 
She  did  not  permit  herself  to  dwell  upon 
these  heartrending  details,  but  in  accom- 
panying the  mortal  remains  of  the  soldiers 
she  felt  that  she  was  to  a  certain  degree  ac- 
quitting herself  of  an  indispensable  duty 
that  had  not  been  rendered  to  Jean.  Then 
the  ceremony  at  the  church  moved  her. 
The  panoply  of  war  mingling  with  hymns 
and  words  of  peace,  the  tumult  of  battle  set 
over  against  the  sacerdotal  acts  of  the  priest, 
and  the  prayers  for  the  eternal  rest  of  the 
soul  that  had  known  to  the  uttermost  the 
[  102  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


horror  of  earthly  chaos,  combined  in  some 
way  to  deaden  the  pain  of  mind,  senses,  and 
heart. 

The  funeral  train  would  climb  the  narrow, 
serpentine  road  which  led  to  the  old  town  on 
the  hill.  Wounded  comrades,  hobbling  along, 
their  feet  ill  defended  from  the  rough 
ground  by  straw  slippers,  some  of  them  lack- 
ing an  arm  and  others  an  eye,  would  follow 
the  hearse  of  the  poor,  covered  with  the  tri- 
color, behind  the  old  parents  or  the  young 
widow  in  tears;  then  would  come  delegates 
from  the  municipality  and  the  hospital,  then 
kindly  disposed  followers,  pious  people, 
idlers.  The  hedges  would  be  growing  green; 
the  farms,  with  flocks  of  children  at  the 
doors  and  lowing  cattle,  would  be  awaking 
from  the  sleep  of  the  long  winter;  one  could 
hear  the  click  of  the  milk-pail  as  it  was 
set  down  upon  the  ground,  the  apple-trees 
in  the  fields  were  great  tufts  of  unsul- 
lied flowers.  When  the  procession,  having 
climbed  the  hillside,  turned  toward  the  right 
the  town  came  into  view,  its  hotels  and 
casinos  transformed  into  hospitals  with  the 
[  103  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


floating  red  cross,  its  church-towers,  its 
long  white  beach,  the  boundless  sea  with 
its  line  of  English  transports,  untiringly 
through  all  the  months,  bringing  from  afar 
British  troops  to  the  land  of  France.  The 
whole  picture  melted  away  into  the  national 
flag  that  covered  the  body  of  the  little 
soldier,  shot  through  by  a  ball  on  the  plains 
of  Picardy.  In  all  this  there  was  a  new  and 
incomparable  poetry;  the  self-sacrifice  of  a 
man  to  something  that  he  hardly  under- 
stands, a  notable  act  in  which  all  desired  to 
participate;  and  by  contract  the  everlasting 
unconcern,  the  utter  indifference,  of  nature. 
Every  one,  without  exception,  was  think- 
ing of  the  end  of  the  war.  It  was  an  illusion 
wrought  by  the  spring,  the  renaissance  of  all 
that  lives,  the  urgent  need  of  peace  and  hap- 
piness that  all  creatures  and  plants  cry  out 
for  beneath  the  returning  sun.  Those  be- 
hind the  hearse  shook  their  heads,  saying: 
"What  a  calamity !"  But  all  were  thinking: 
"It  will  surely  soon  be  over."  They  sighed: 
"  My  God,  grant  that  this  may  be  the  last  to 
go !"  Alas,  it  was  only  the  first  springtide  of 
[  104  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


the  war !  If  a  prophetic  voice  should  have 
cried:  "In  the  spring  of  next  year,  in  the 
spring  of  another  year,  and  still  of  another, 
this  same  ceremony  will  take  place,  the 
same  hopes  will  be  uttered,  the  same  illu- 
sions cherished !  For  season  shall  follow  upon 
season,  year  upon  year,  only  the  horror  and 
unhappiness  shall  be  changed,  for  they  shall 
increase  and  time  shall  know  them  out  of  all 
proportions  that  are  called  reasonable" — • 
assuredly  these  good  people  would  have 
been  crushed. 

As  they  went  down  the  hill  they  gathered 
flowers  along  the  roadside.  The  soldiers 
stopped  in  the  wine-shops  where  they  were 
given  cider,  and  all  returned  to  their  places 
at  once  moved,  saddened,  and  enriched  by 
hopes,  as  is  always  the  case  when  a  new  vic- 
tim has  succumbed. 

Spring  passed,  and  summer,  and  autumn. 

Odette  never  spoke  of  her  husband's 
death,  though  she  was  always  thinking  of  it. 
She  had  found  neither  officer  nor  soldier  who 
had  known  him.  The  death  of  Lieutenant 
Jacquelin  in  the  early  days  of  the  war  was  a 

t 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


disappearance  like  so  many  others,  in  a  chain 
of  events  that  had  no  common  measure.  A 
man  would  fall,  another  man  would  take  his 
place;  nearly  all  the  officers  by  profession 
were  dead,  and  there  were  officers  still. 

"What  is  a  man?"  a  common  soldier 
asked  her  one  day  on  the  beach. 


X 


in  the  following  spring,  when  the 
gardens  that  surrounded  the  villas  of  Sur- 
ville  were  gay  with  flowering  plums,  and  the 
countryside  was  again  covered  with  those 
lovely  trees  of  rosy  snow  that  it  is  a  pain  to 
look  at  when  men  are  killing  one  another, 
when  the  woods  were  venturing  to  confide 
to  the  brisk  air  their  new-born  foliage, 
Odette  was  obliged  to  make  a  visit  to  Paris. 
During  the  journey,  in  company  with 
convalescents  and  men  on  furlough,  old 
men,  and  women  in  mourning,  she  was 
astonished  to  find  herself  so  much  attached 
to  the  hospital  which  she  had  entered  almost 
[  106] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


against  her  will,  drawn  by  something  which 
seemed  not  to  belong  to  her  real  self. 

"Most  of  the  women  that  I  have  met 
there,"  she  reflected,  "are  of  an  unlovely 
pettiness,  and  one  would  say  that  they 
strive  to  transform  the  most  innocent  act 
into  a  shameful  offense,  from  a  desire  to  be- 
lieve that  there  are  traitors,  guilty  persons 
everywhere,  and  by  a  strange  inclination  to 
find  the  presence  of  the  devil  in  every 
corner !  And  yet  their  service  is  excellent." 
Cunning  malice,  destructive  backbiting, 
scandal  set  on  foot  by  inconsiderate  com- 
ments on  trivial  acts,  often  meaningless  and 
that  might  well  have  been  left  unnoticed, 
open  jealousy,  absurd  vanity,  the  most  in- 
sidious intrigues  to  work  up  to  distinction; 
to  sum  up,  utter  triviality — all  these  com- 
posed a  body  of  customs  recognized,  ad- 
mitted, in  no  respect  casting  a  blot  upon 
respectability.  Only  one  thing  led  up  to  the 
mark  of  infamy:  anything  which  nearly  or 
remotely  might  resemble  love. 

How  surprising  this  had  appeared  in  the 
eyes  of  a  Parisian  woman  of  twenty-seven, 
[  107  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


who  had  lived  in  the  world  of  society  during 
the  years  between  1905  and  1914 ! 

Odette  mused  upon  that  social  circle, 
young,  cheerful,  given  to  sports,  relatively 
kindly  and  prosperous,  who  before  the  war 
had  surrounded  her. 

What  had  become  of  Simone  de  Prans, 
Rose  Misson,  Clotilde  Awogade,  Germaine 
Le  Gault,  and  M.  de  La  Villaumer  ?  She  had 
received  brief  missives  from  them,  postal- 
cards  rather  than  letters.  On  her  part,  had 
Odette  perhaps  disconcerted  her  friends  by 
the  accounts  she  sent  them;  had  she  perhaps 
wearied  them  by  her  persistent  grief? 
Simone  and  Rose  still  had  their  husbands, 
the  former  grievously  wounded,  the  other 
still  whole,  running  about  in  his  car  as  usual; 
Awogade  was  attached  to  Great  Head- 
quarters. Can  any  one  understand  the  sor- 
row from  which  he  does  not  himself  suffer  ? 

On  reaching  Paris  Odette  was  singularly 
impressed.  When  she  had  gone  to  Surville  in 
1914,  to  forget  the  war  and  think  only  of  her 
dead,  she  had  been  surprised  to  find  herself 
on  the  contrary  all  the  nearer  to  the  war. 
[  108  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


The  trains  of  wounded,  life  among  the 
wounded,  the  almost  sole  society  of  men  but 
recently  escaped  from  death;  all  this  was  far 
different  from  her  recluse  life  in  the  apart- 
ment of  the  Rue  de  Balzac,  which  had  in- 
deed recalled  the  memory  of  Jean,  but  had 
also  recalled  the  memory  of  the  time  of 
peace.  Monotony  of  occupation,  the  con- 
tinual living-over  of  the  same  emotions,  at 
last  dulls  the  sensibilities.  The  war  as  it  ap- 
peared to  her  after  eighteen  months  of  hos- 
pital experience  was  a  state  of  things  to 
which  her  organism  and  her  thought  had 
become  moulded.  The  long  daily  weariness, 
the  constantly  renewed  effort,  dulled  her 
senses  and  confused  her  perception  of 
events. 

Paris  in  March,  1916,  seemed  to  her  much 
more  like  war  than  Surville.  The  battle  of 
Verdun  was  at  its  height,  and  all  Paris  was 
ringing  with  its  echoes  wherever  one  might 
be.  Newspapers,  conversations,  the  tram-' 
ways,  the  metro,  the  taxi  chauffeur  who 
gave  you  change,  the  woman  who  sold  you 
a  magazine,  servants,  masters,  the  rich,  the 
[  109  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


poor,  bank  employees,  even  to  the  sellers  of 
violets  in  the  streets,  all  brought  to  mind  the 
war  and  Verdun,  yet  mutely,  less  by  out- 
cries than  by  quiet  words,  less  by  words  than 
by  changed  color,  the  graying  of  the  hair  or 
of  the  beard,  faded  eyes,  new  wrinkles,  and 
a  certain  indefinable  manner.  The  whole 
earth  and  everything  that  it  bears,  every 
creature  moving  upon  it,  were  a  single  sen- 
sitiveness, raised  to  its  most  acute  degree. 
Acts  and  gestures  apparently  most  remote 
from  the  war,  receptions,  dinners,  the  crowd 
at  the  entrance  of  the  moving-picture  shows, 
of  classical  concerts,  of  the  few  remaining 
music-halls,  only  showed  the  necessity  for 
certain  temperaments  to  tear  themselves 
away  from  the  nightmare  of  Verdun.  Every 
one  was  affected  by  it,  and  so  much  the  more 
as  they  were  forced  to  tell  themselves: 
"There  are  those  who  are  suffering  infinitely 
more  than  we." 

Odette,  in  her  apartment,  was  once  again 

overwhelmed  by  her  personal  sorrow.  She 

had  lived  in  Surville  with  her  grief  buried  in 

the  depths  of  her  heart,  for  though  every- 

I  no] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


thing  she  saw  reminded  her  of  Jean  she  had 
no  leisure  to  give  herself  to  dwelling  upon 
the  past.  In  the  Rue  de  Balzac  all  her  sorrow 
came  to  meet  her  entire  as  on  the  first  day. 
It  seemed  as  if  her  stay  at  Surville  had  done 
nothing  for  her.  When  Simone  de  Prans 
came  to  welcome  her,  it  seemed  to  Odette 
that  her  friend  had  just  arrived  with  the 
terrible  news,  and  she  melted  into  tears. 
Her  tears  surprised  Simone,  who  dared  not 
reproach  her  with  exaggerating  her  sorrow, 
but  who  yet  brought  herself  to  give  her  to 
understand  that  so  long  and  so  violent  a  grief 
was  not  fitting,  that  no  one  any  longer  wept 
like  that.  Odette,  made  docile  by  eighteen 
months  of  punctual  obedience  to  orders,  did 
not  resist,  made  no  objection.  "No  one  any 
longer  wept  like  that";  it  was  a  custom,  one 
of  those  sovereign  customs,  which  a  Parisian 
woman  instinctively  accepts.  Simone  had 
said:  "You  understand,  there  are  too 
many!"  Which  signified,  such  misfortunes 
are  too  numerous;  they  are  raining  down  on 
everybody.  The  human  heart  would  not  be 
equal  to  its  task  if  it  must  be  always  sym- 

t 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


pathizing;  each  woman  in  mourning  would 
herself  die  of  it,  creating  a  new  and  super- 
fluous pain.  She  spoke  with  the  greatest 
ease  of  her  Pierrot,  one  leg  paralyzed,  one 
arm  five  centimetres  shorter  than  the  other 
and  with  shattered  nerves.  He  was  at  the 
Ministry  of  War,  and  was  content.  She  told 
of  a  ceremony  which  she  had  accidentally 
witnessed  that  morning,  passing  the  Made- 
leine on  her  way  back  from  the  Flower  Mar- 
ket. "A  fine  marriage,  you  know;  red  carpet 
on  the  steps,  a  crowd  to  right  and  left.  Just 
as  I  was  passing  the  doors  opened,  and  up 
above  I  saw  the  young  couple." 
"There  are  still  men  to  marry?" 
"Listen;  she,  who  appeared  to  be  pretty, 
a  lovely  girl,  a  brunette,  tall,  leaning,  as  if 
enamoured,  on  her  husband's  arm;  he  in  uni- 
form, his  decorations  flashing  on  his  breast. 
Oh,  the  handsome  fellow,  not  thirty  years 
old  !  He  held  himself  upright,  splendid,  not 
looking  at  his  feet;  two  large  eyes  wide  open 
and  fixed,  as  if  he  were  speaking  to  a  su- 
perior. She  seemed  to  be  indicating  the  steps 
by  a  gentle  pressure  of  the  arm,  that  he 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


might  not  lose  an  inch  of  his  fine  height.  Be- 
hind them  one  could  hear  the  swellings  of  the 
great  organ.  There  was  an  impulse  to  ap- 
plaud, for  he  was  evidently  a  hero,  un- 
maimed  and  superb.  Every  one  was  glad  in 
the  happiness  of  his  charming  wife,  though 
pitying  her  in  the  midst  of  admiration,  for 
to-morrow  her  handsome  officer  must  return 
to  the  firing-line,  and  the  war  is  endless. 
Suddenly  there  was  a  movement  in  the 
crowd,  murmurs,  whisperings,  faces  turned 
pale;  the  handsome  officer  had  just  missed 
falling,  my  dear,  notwithstanding  the  care  of 
his  young  wife  to  hide  his  infirmity,  for  he 
was  blind !" 

"It's  frightful,  frightful,"  exclaimed 
Odette. 

She  had  seen  and  nursed  most  grievously 
wounded  soldiers;  but  unconsciously  a  sort 
of  convention  had  been  established  in  her 
mind  by  which  nothing  that  she  saw,  or  that 
happened  in  the  hospital  at  Surville,  should 
move  her.  This  first  result  of  the  war  which 
had  faced  her  elsewhere  than  at  Surville, 
and  under  another  aspect,  impressed  her  al- 

t 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


most  intolerably.  On  the  other  hand,  Simone 
had  become  accustomed  to  the  dramatic 
scenes  which  at  times  occur  in  Paris,  where 
everything  is  perhaps  all  the  more  sad  be- 
cause the  war  drama  is  close  at  hand,  aping 
normal  life.  This  juxtaposition  of  the  man- 
ners of  a  time  of  peace  and  these  shadows  of 
the  pit  which  mingle  with  the  life  of  every 
day,  more  like  a  prolonged  dream  than  like 
reality,  produce  surprising  effects  upon  re- 
flective minds. 

Simone  de  Prans,  who  for  a  time  had 
taken  up  work  in  a  model  hospital,  an 
American  hospital,  was  no  longer  a  nurse. 
That  was  no  longer  done. 

"What  about  our  good  Rose?"  asked 
Odette. 

"Rose  Misson  has  arranged  her  life.  She 
has  resolved  not  to  yield  to  things;  she  has 
been  too  much  teased  about  her  old  hus- 
band, always  going  about  in  his  automobile. 
Neither  Rose  nor  her  husband  is  disturbed 
by  that;  he  remains  on  his  seat;  she  dresses, 
visits  the  shops  as  in  former  times  and  re- 
ceives the  few  friends  who  are  not  indignant 

t 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


because  her  husband  has  not  lost  two  or 
three  limbs.  Between  ourselves,  I  think  she 
is  a  woman  who  is  doing  a  great  deal  of 
good." 

"Only  she  does  not  cry  it  upon  the  house- 
tops?" 

"No;  they  will  be  upbraided  for  it  all  their 
lives,  she  and  her  husband;  he,  free  from  all 
military  obligation,  for  having  ' ambushed' 
himself  in  his  automobile,  she  for  having 
retained  her  placid  manner,  her  good  hu- 


mor." 


"I  thought  that  optimism  was  in  fashion." 

"Optimism,  yes,  but  not  naturalness. 
The  approved  sort  of  optimism  consists  in 
unendingly  predicting  victory,  with  the  jaw 
of  a  tigress,  and  in  determinedly  transform- 
ing all  bad  news  into  a  presage  of  success. 
But  those  who  maintain  a  quiet  confidence 
without  talking  about  it,  and  make  life 
around  them  more  pleasant  by  their  usual 
good  temper,  are  suspected  of  indifference." 

"And  in  all  this,  what  about  you, 
Simone  ?" 

"Me  ?  I  have  a  husband  deep  in  govern- 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


ment  councils,  haven't  I  ?  It  is  a  power  in 
these  days.  People  leave  me  alone." 

"And  Germaine  ?"  asked  Odette. 

Simone  appeared  somewhat  embarrassed. 
People  hardly  dared  to  talk  of  Germaine  Le 
Gault.  Germaine  Le  Gault  had  lost  her  hus- 
band at  about  the  same  time  with  Odette, 
and  almost  under  the  same  circumstances. 
Like  Odette,  Germaine  adored  her  husband. 
Germaine  had  taken  the  loss  even  more 
deeply  to  heart  than  Odette;  her  life  had 
even  been  in  danger.  Germaine,  like  Odette, 
still  wore  her  deep  widow's  mourning.  And 
Germaine  was  now  in  love;  in  love  beyond 
the  possibility  of  concealment,  in  love  with  a 
head  physician  in  whose  service  she  had 
worked.  He  was  a  married  man  and  a  father. 

"La  Villaumer  insists,"  said  Simone, 
"that  in  her  case  it  is  simply  a  lack  of  im- 
agination, and  that  no  one  should  blame  her. 
He  says,  you  understand,  that  she  is  unable 
to  bring  before  herself,  as  you  do,  for  ex- 
ample, a  vision  of  her  husband.  If  she  had 
been  capable  of  bearing  about  with  her  a 
persistent  picture  of  him,  she  would  have 
t  116] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


been  faithful,  if  it  were  only  to  a  picture;  but 
she  has  no  imagination;  it  is  necessary  to  her 
that  her  mind  should  rest  upon  an  object. 
It  is  one  explanation — probably  a  paradox." 

At  that  moment  they  heard  in  the  neigh- 
boring apartment  the  playing  of  an  excellent 
pianist  which  had  formerly  lulled  the  rever- 
ies of  Odette  when  she  was  waiting  for  Jean. 
That  neighboring  apartment,  into  which  the 
Jacquelins  had  never  set  foot,  was  separated 
from  theirs  only  by  a  thin  partition  and  a 
door.  The  music  had  often  fretted  Jean,  but 
when  Odette  was  alone  she  had  loved  to 
hear  it. 

"Listen!"  said  Odette.  "Oh,  it  is  more 
than  eighteen  months  since  I  have  heard 
music !" 

"That  is  so,"  said  Simone;  "in  Paris  one 
finds  a  little  of  everything  that  one  used  to 
love;  it  is  that  that  hurts." 

"What  is  she  playing?"  asked  Simone 
after  a  moment. 

It  was  a  revery;  two  lovers  who  are  seek- 
ing one  another,  groping  in  the  darkness  of  a 
garden  on  a  lovely  summer  night;  you  hear 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


their  hesitating  footsteps,  you  suspect  their 
vexed  and  feverish  gestures,  their  eager  lips 
that  call  one  another  without  imprudently 
pronouncing  a  name;  though  their  footsteps 
creak  upon  the  gravel  and  a  fountain  drops 
its  slow  pearls  into  the  basin.  Suddenly  the 
music  of  a  waltz  attracts  them  separately  to 
the  lighted  house,  and  they  exchange  kisses 
on  the  steps  of  the  entrance,  before  being 
swallowed  up  in  the  intoxicating  motion. 

"Oh!"  exclaimed  Odette,  thrilled,  "do 
you  remember,  do  you  remember?" 

"What?"  asked  Simone. 

"Why,  everything !  Everything  that  hap- 
pened before,  before  this  end  of  the  world 
that  never  ends !" 

Odette,  overcome  by  the  harmonious  re- 
minder of  the  waltz  of  a  possible  festival,  of 
the  joy  of  living,  of  being  pretty,  young,  be- 
loved, could  only  repeat : 

"I  haven't  heard  .  .  .  anything  .  .  .  for 
more  than  eighteen  months,  Simone  !  Do  you 
remember  that  evening  at  Mme.  Sormel- 
lier's,  at  Bellevue,  where  both  our  husbands 
were  so  beautiful?" 

[118] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"And  we,  too,  Odette !  We  shall  be  old 
after  the  war.  We  shall  have  had  hardly  five 
or  six  years  of  youth.  I  will  confess  to  you 
that  sometimes  I  juggle  with  fate.  I  go  to 
see  Clotilde,  who  refuses  to  permit  herself  to 
be  touched  by  events.  She  says:  'I  can  do 
nothing  about  it;  I  am  good  for  nothing. 
Let  the  world  let  me  alone  as  I  let  it  alone ! 
Till  my  last  hour  I  will  stay  with  my  flowers, 
my  books,  and  my  music/' 

"Ah !  Clotilde,  yes;  do  you  know,  I  had 
forgotten  her!" 

"Everybody  is  forgetting  her,  and  she 
forgets  everybody.  Her  husband  is  at  Great 
Headquarters;  he  often  comes.  She  is  a 
privileged  person,  and  she  says:  'Why 
should  I  not  accept  all  the  good  that  is 
offered  me  ? ' ' 

"Yes,"  said  Odette,  "it  is  tempting,  but  I 
could  not  do  it. — No,  I  could  not. — See,  I 
tried  to  shut  myself  up  with  my  grief.  Well, 
I  could  not.  It  is  too  great — this  universal 
sorrow — too  absorbing.  Listen!" 

The  pianist  next  door,  still  devoted  to 
her  Chopin,  which  she  performed  in  a  re- 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


markable  manner,  was  beginning  the  First 
Nocturne,  the  one  that  contains  that  phrase 
of  lamentation,  heartrending  in  its  sober 
scheme  and  its  sustained  phrasing,  without 
outcry  or  burst  of  passion,  leaving  the  soul 
to  the  lasting  sense  of  human  woe. 

"Oh,  listen— listen !" 

The  pianist  was  accompanying  herself 
with  her  grave,  finely  cadenced  voice,  fol- 
lowing without  words  the  sinuous  course 
of  the  thrice-repeated  utterance  of  sorrow. 
Odette  began  to  sob;  her  nerves  were  un- 
strung by  the  apparent  return  to  things  of 
former  days,  while  yet  acutely  conscious  of 
the  dreadful  present. 

"I  must  give  up  this  apartment,  after 
all,"  she  said  between  her  sobs. 

"Yes,  you  will  have  to,"  replied  Simone; 
"you  would  be  overwhelmed  with  your 
sense  of  loss." 

"For  that  matter  I  must  give  up  every- 
thing." 

"Everything  ?  What  more,  do  tell  me  !" 

"Myself!  See,  I  cannot  delude  myself 
longer." 

[  120  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"  My  poor  Odette !  You  are  hardly  four 
days  out  of  your  hospital,  and  you  go  to 
pieces  !  We  are  only  kept  up  by  the  presence 
of  those  who  have  suffered  a  thousand  times 
more  than  we.  You  can't  imagine  what  it  is 
for  me  that  my  Pierrot  has  miraculously 
escaped  death,  with  his  body  half  destroyed. 
It  is  he  who  saves  me  from  unhappiness. 
Those  who  have  looked  death  in  the  face 
and  yet  have  returned  to  life  find  it  beauti- 
ful, whatever  it  is,  and  their  wonder  at  it 
spreads  to  all  around  them." 

"Yes,  yes.  I  have  felt  that.  If  I  had  my 
poor  Jean,  even  all  broken  to  pieces,  I  should 
think  only  of  the  joy  of  having  him  safe. 
But  I  have  him  no  longer,  and  the  past 
draws  me,  at  times,  as  if  some  one  much 
stronger  than  I  were  taking  me  by  the  arms 
and  drawing  me  backward  with  irresistible 
power.  Do  you  remember  Isadora  dancing 
among  her  children  and  throwing  flowers  in 
one  of  the  motives  of  the  ballet  of  "Armi- 
da"  ?  And  that  great  fool  Antoine  Laloire 
behind  us,  crying:  'When  one  has  seen  that 
one  may  well  say,  "Thank  you,"  to  God 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


and  close  one's  eyes  forever ! '  He  had  no 
idea  how  well  he  was  speaking.  They  say  he 
had  a  splendid  death." 

"Yes.  All  our  admiration  must  from  this 
time  forward  be  given  to  the  beauty  of  our 
warriors.  Harmonious  forms,  enchantment 
— we  are  done  with  them  all,  my  poor  child, 
done  with  them !" 

"Done  with  them!  So  they  say.  So  I 
thought,  too,  when  I  saw  those  men  coming 
in  by  the  hundreds,  reduced  to  a  mass  of 
bleeding  pulp;  I  still  think  so  when  I  think 
of  the  long  line  of  devastation  which  is 
spreading  over  Europe,  of  all  those  human 
beings  who  are  every  day  dying  around  their 
torpedoed  vessels;  but  think !  The  moment 
the  art  of  our  former  days  is  able  to  realize 
itself  anywhere,  beyond  a  partition,  it  rises 
upon  us  like  the  sun  that  has  been  two  days 
hidden.  It  will  rise  again,  Simone  !  If  only  a 
few  individuals  are  left  who  can  hear  a  note, 
a  shepherd  will  be  found  to  invent  the  flute 
once  again,  by  bringing  reeds  together." 

"You  say  that  because  the  art  of  which 
you  are  speaking  only  increases  your  sad- 
[  122  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


ness.  You  are  cultivating  your  sadness,  and 
loving  it  still.  If  you  were  less  melancholy, 
like  me,  you  would  consent  to  accept  the 
new  life  just  as  it  offers  itself;  but  you  will 
always  see  it  irremediably  disfigured,  poi- 
soned by  an  overwhelming  horror.  Life  from 
henceforth  is  a  Lady  Macbeth  with  red  and 
horrific  hands,  marking  with  a  bloody  spot 
everything  that  it  touches.  What  fine  art 
could  flourish  except  by  means  of  men  not 
yet  born,  men  who  will  not  come  into  the 
world  until  after  this  horror  is  no  longer 
spoken  about?" 

"Remember  what  those  poor  friends  of 
ours  used  to  say  when  they  talked  so  well  in 
our  gatherings  of  former  days:  the  flowers 
that  bloom  on  graves  are  as  fresh  and  the 
harvests  that  grow  on  battlefields  are  more 
abundant  than  those  on  fields  that  have 
never  known  crime  and  death;  they  are  in- 
nocent, divinely  innocent  of  all  the  past. 
The  souls  of  artists  are  like  flowers;  and  they 
purify  the  imaginations  that  have  been 
soiled." 

"And  the  conclusion  is  that  you  and  I 
[  123  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


both,  my  dear,  have  after  all  a  good  share 
of  optimism,  otherwise  called  a  reserve 
strength  upon  which  we  can  draw  for  a  cer- 
tain time.  Let  us  hope  it  may  be  for  a  long 
time.  And  we  find  the  same  thing  under  the 
distress  of  nearly  all  men.  Ah,  how  strong 
life  is!" 


XI 


O 


'DETTE  began  a  round  of  visits. 

For  the  most  part  they  were  visits  of  con- 
dolence. She  went  first  to  Mme.  de  Blauve, 
who  had  lately  lost  her  young  son,  that 
charming  boy  of  seventeen  whom  Odette 
had  seen  for  a  second  in  the  Avenue  d'lena 
flying  to  the  recruiting-office,  to  take  the 
place  of  his  father,  who  had  been  killed  in 
the  second  month  of  the  war.  Mme.  de 
Blauve  had  come  back  from  Rheims,  where 
at  that  time  she  had  been  a  nurse,  under  un- 
ceasing bombardments;  she  had  returned  to 
her  daughters,  who  were  now  growing  up. 
Odette  found  the  family  no  more  crushed 
or  mordse  than  at  the  first  time.  The  father, 
[  124  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Commandant  de  Blauve,  adored  by  all,  was 
dead;  the  elder  son,  in  his  nineteenth  year, 
was  dead. 

"Happily,"  said  Mme.  de  Blauve,  "I 
have  one  left." 

"How  old  is  he?"  asked  Odette  anx- 
iously. 

"He  is  about  to  enlist,"  said  Mme.  de 
Blauve  simply.  "Through  him,  I  hope  that 
our  name  will  be  represented  to  the  end." 

Every  one  knew  that  this  last  son  was  her 
Benjamin,  petted  more  than  all  her  other 
children.  Her  present  anxiety  was  for  her 
daughters;  she  would  fain  have  married 
them  at  once. 

"Marry  them!"  cried  Odette;  "but  to 
whom,  at  such  a  time  as  this  ?" 

"To  good  young  soldiers,  that  they  may 
soon  have  children." 

Not  the  slightest  emotion,  though  the 
family  was  truly  affectionate;  one  single 
idea — to  come  to  the  defense  of  the  country, 
by  whatever  means.  Odette  could  not  but 
admire,  though  at  the  same  time  she  trem- 
bled. 

[125] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"How  far  advanced  is  your  mourning?" 
asked  Mme.  de  Blauve  almost  severely. 

"What?  "asked  Odette. 

"I  mean,  how  long  is  it  since  you  lost 
you  dear  husband  ?" 

"Just  eighteen  months,"  replied  Odette. 

"You  are  young,"  said  Mme.  de  Blauve; 
"my  child,  you  still  have  duties  to  per- 
form." 

"But,"  said  Odette,  bewildered,  "I  am 
doing  what  I  can." 

"We  will  speak  again  of  it  in  a  few 
months,"  said  Mme.  de  Blauve.  "I  shall 
not  lose  sight  of  you.  I  count  you  among  the 
good  ones." 

She  dwelt  upon  the  word  "good"  as  she 
bade  Odette  good-by. 

Odette  did  not  in  the  least  grasp  Mme.  de 
Blauve's  meaning.  Did  she  find  her  "good" 
because  she  had  for  a  long  time  been  con- 
scientiously doing  a  nurse's  duties,  and  did 
she  think  of  sending  her  to  some  difficult 
post,  requiring  courage  and  constancy  ?  She 
was  cheerfully  ready  for  anything.  Only  one 
thing  troubled  her;  it  was  that  the  memory 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


of  Jean  seemed  to  be  relegated  to  so  dis- 
tant a  past,  seemed  to  hold  so  small  a  place 
in  the  thoughts  of  the  people  whom  she  was 
about  to  see,  she  being  still  in  deep  mourn- 
ing, and  having  been  away  only  seventeen 
months,  to  mourn  for  Jean. 

Why  did  Odette  go  directly  from  the 
Avenue  d'lena  to  see  Clotilde  ?  Not  in  the 
least  by  reason  of  the  love  of  contrast,  or 
the  need  for  it,  but  because  she  was  pass- 
ing the  Place  of  the  United  States,  which 
attracted  her  with  its  trees  adorned  with 
their  young  leafage. 

She  found  Clotilde  as  she  had  always 
found  her,  extended  upon  an  ancient  couch, 
amid  twenty  cushions,  a  dozen  books  and 
magazines,  in  an  elegant  room,  with  a 
bunch  of  carnations  flaunting  their  glory, 
and  hyacinths  in  pots  surrounding  the 
young  woman  with  a  fragrant  suggestion  of 
spring. 

"Ah!"  exclaimed  Odette  as  she  entered, 
without  quite  perceiving  the  significance  of 
her  exclamation. 

Clotilde,   perfumed   and  her  tall  figure 
[  127  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


clothed  in  a  Babani  robe,  kissed  her  joy- 
fully. 

"You  haven't  fallen  off  much,  Odette. 
Tell  me,  are  these  your  cheeks  ?  No  more 
rouge  than  in  the  old  days  ?  Oh,  how  often  I 
think  of  your  loss,  my  dear !" 

She  was  the  first  person,  except  La  Vil- 
laumer,  who  had  spoken  to  her  of  her  loss. 
Then  there  was  still  some  one  who  remem- 
bered what  had  been  her  happiness,  her  ex- 
traordinary happiness. 

"I  haven't  written  to  you,  Odette,  be- 
cause I  was  too  lazy,  and  because  I  need  to 
imagine  the  face  of  the  person  to  whom  I 
write.  So  far  away,  under  your  nurse's  cap, 
I  couldn't  tell — you  are  pretty;  I  love  you 
always.  Oh,  how  sorry  I  am  for  you !" 

Odette,  surprised,  embarrassed,  still  un- 
der the  influence  of  the  life  she  had  been 
leading,  spoke  as  every  one  did: 

"There  are  so  many  of  us  who  deserve  to 
be  pitied." 

"No,  Odette,  no;  I  am  not  saying  that. 
No  doubt  there  are  many  widows  and  many 
young  women  whose  husbands  01  lovers  are 
[  128  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


maimed,  disfigured,  ruined.  But  there  are 
not  many  who,  before  all  that,  have  truly 
enjoyed  life  and  love.  You  have  known  love. 
You  have  had  a  few  years  that  are  worth 
being  regretted." 

Tears  rose  to  Odette's  eyes.  They  were 
tears  that  gave  no  pain,  which  rather  com- 
forted her.  It  seemed  that  she  had  long  been 
waiting  to  shed  such  tears.  She  had  so  con- 
stantly heard  conventional  words,  forced  ex- 
pressions, the  result  of  a  strained  situation 
which  there  was  surely  no  reason  to  criticise; 
but,  except  from  her  wounded  soldiers,  she 
had  not  before  heard  words  simply  hu- 
man. 

Clotilde  was  not  afraid  to  talk  persistently 
of  Jean,  not  because  she  felt  that  at  bottom 
she  was  giving  pleasure  to  her  friend,  but 
because  her  thoughts  naturally  turned  to 
attractive  things,  and  she  loved  to  remem- 
ber that  charming  couple  of  perfect  lovers 
that  Jean  and  Odette  had  been.  Never  hav- 
ing checked  her  instinct,  it  now  told  her  that 
Odette,  in  spite  of  her  tears,  enjoyed  the  re- 
vival of  these  memories.  It  was  not  Jean  the 
[  129  1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


soldier,  Jean  the  hero,  whose  praises  Clotilde 
sang.  Odette  had  heard  so  many  praises  of 
heroes !  She  had  handled  so  many  with  her 
own  hands !  There  had  never  been  but  one 
Jean.  He  was  Jean,  just  Jean,  a  fine,  good, 
and  handsome  fellow  who  had  nothing  mili- 
tary, nothing  surprising  about  him,  except 
just  that  he  was  beloved.  Who  had  dared  to 
talk  to  her  of  that  Jean  since  the  war  ?  No 
one.  Clotilde  was  doing  it  in  the  unconscious- 
ness of  a  woman  who  was  still  what  she  had 
been  before.  And  Odette  had  felt  some  appre- 
hension about  seeing  Clotilde  again,  just  be- 
cause she  had  feared  that  Clotilde  had  really 
not  changed  enough ! 

The  interview  was  soothing,  even  de- 
lightful to  her.  Clotilde  seemed  almost  to 
have  forgotten  the  war — a  little  more  and 
she  would  have  made  her  forget  it.  She 
talked  of  the  books  that  she  was  reading; 
books  written  earlier  than  the  present  time; 
she  talked,  too,  laughingly  of  her  clothes, 
on  the  pretext  of  the  diminished  resources 
of  the  family;  she  spoke  of  certain  middle- 
aged  and  even  old  men,  saying  that  they  had 
[  130  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


not  been  appreciated  in  the  days  when  there 
had  been  plenty  of  young  fellows.  She  offered 
her  friend  a  cigarette;  she  smoked,  and  the 
two  women  looked  at  each  other  through 
curls  of  long,  light  clouds,  as  if  in  a  dream. 

Odette  went  out  somewhat  amazed  at  the 
incredible  ivory  tower  which  Clotilde  had 
succeeded  in  building  around  her  youth,  her 
beauty,  and  her  selfishness. 

"Is  Clotilde  selfish  ?"  she  asked  herself,  as 
she  turned  from  the  Square  of  the  United 
States.  "And  yet  how  she  asked  about  my 
Jean !  Clotilde  is  like  every  one  else;  she  is 
interested  in  just  one  thing,  has  a  passion 
for  it.  She  has  kept  as  by  a  miracle  the  one 
thing  that  she  had  before  the  war,  and  that 
is  love.  Everything  that  represents  love  cap- 
tivates her;  one  feels  that  she  gives  herself 
up  to  it.  The  others  yield  to  a  different  pas- 
sion which,  by  the  conditions  of  our  time, 
takes  on  a  more  sympathetic  form.  Mme.  de 
Blauve  with  sacred  fury  throws  all  her 
family  into  the  jaws  of  Moloch;  Mme.  de 
Calouas,  in  Surville,  has  a  passion  only  for 
the  wounded,  exclusively  for  wounded  sol- 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


diers;  I  have  seen  her  utterly  insensible  to  an 
accident  to  a  civilian;  most  of  those  women 
in  the  hospital  had  a  passion  for  their  duties 
there,  thought  themselves  degraded  when 
they  had  not  the  number  of  beds  that  satis- 
fied their  pride,  lamented  as  if  for  a  public 
misfortune  when,  by  chance,  fewer  wounded 
soldiers  came.  There  are  even  people  whose 
passion  it  is  to  have  no  passions — and  they 
are  the  most  to  be  dreaded.  Why  should 
Clotilde  deprive  herself  of  her  bouquet  of 
carnations,  her  pot  of  hyacinths,  her  per- 
fumed cigarettes,  while  they  serve  to  create 
around  her  the  illusion  by  which  she  lives, 
and  of  which,  when  the  occasion  comes,  she 
gives  her  weary  friends  the  benefit  for  a 
whole  hour  ?  Yet,  could  I  do  like  her  ?  No; 
decidedly  not.  Did  not  I,  then,  love  love  as 
she  does  ?  I  do  not  know,  I  loved  Jean. 
Then  I  am  less  simple  than  she;  everything 
affects  me.  And  everything  is  shaken.  I  am 
not  flattering  myself  when  I  recognize  that 
I  am  alive  to  more  than  one  thing.  I  wanted 
to  be  wholly  devoted  to  one — to  my  sorrow. 
I  believe  that  I  am  alive  only  to  my  grief, 
[  132  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


and  yet  sometimes  I  think  that  in  this  I  am 
mistaken." 

That  day  she  felt  an  overwhelming  lassi- 
tude. Clotilde  had  lapped  her  in  "soft 
odors."  As  she  was  asking  herself  how  she 
could  finish  the  day  she  bethought  her  that 
she  had  been  told  that  Mme.  Leconque  was 
another  Clotilde,  that  is  to  say,  a  fairy  ca- 
pable of  drawing  one  out  of  the  war  mood, 
though  she  belonged  to  a  social  set  that  was 
just  now  holding  it  as  a  great  honor  to  give 
to  it  unstintingly  both  life  and  fortune. 

"I  must  not  fail  of  seeing  her,"  said 
Odette  to  herself,  "  and  just  now  I  prefer  an- 
other Clotilde  to  a  second  Mme.  de  Blauve, 
who  makes  me  shudder."  She  took  a  taxi  to 
the  end  of  the  Avenue  du  Bois. 

Mme.  Leconque  was  at  home  and  alone. 
Muffled  up  in  an  ermine  coverlet,  in  a  room 
brightened  by  a  wood-fire  large  enough  to 
warm  an  assembly-room  in  the  city  hall, 
and  surrounded  by  objects  of  art,  ancient 
trinkets,  Watteaux,  Fragonards,  she  lay  on 
a  couch  near  a  majestic  bed,  high  and  royal, 

[  133  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


covered  with  Venetian  point,  determinedly 
knitting,  amid  yawns,  little  stockings  of 
coarse  wool,  for  refugee  children. 

"You,  at  least,  have  had  enough  of  this 
butchery,"  she  said. 

Odette,  under  her  mourning-veil,  ad- 
mitted that  for  her  part  she  found  no  plea- 
sure in  it. 

"I  should  be  glad  to  know,"  went  on 
Mme.  Leconque,  "what  sort  of  a  life  they 
are  giving  us." 

Odette  looked  around  at  the  great  wood- 
fire,  the  walls  of  the  room,  a  perfect  mu- 
seum, and  at  the  silky  fleece  that  enwrapped 
the  form  of  the  dissatisfied  woman. 

"They  have  just  telephoned  me,"  Mme. 
Leconque  went  on,  "that  we  have  evacuated 
Malancourt.  Just  look  at  my  stockings,  if 
you  call  them  stockings  !  I  admit  that  I 
never  paid  seventy-five  francs  a  pair  for 
mine — I  always  sent  to  London  for  them 
and  got  them  at  thirty-five  francs.  And  to- 
day I  am  wearing  stockings  at  3  francs  95  ! " 

"Why  do  you  ?"  asked  Odette. 

"You  would  despise  me  if  I  paid  more  for 

1 134] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


them,  in  these  days.  You  are  in  mourning, 
my  poor  dear;  you  don't  think  about  these 
matters.  Do  you  know  where  we  are  all  get- 
ting our  clothes  ?  In  the  Rue  d'Alesia,  my 
child,  in  a  store  where  they  sell  ribbons  on 
the  main  floor  for  eight  sous  a  metre,  and 
up-stairs  you  find  models  of  all  the  great 
Paris  dressmakers  at  a  third  of  the  regular 
price.  You  might  go  there  out  of  curiosity; 
I'll  take  you,  if  you  like.  You  will  find  ten 
autos  at  the  door,  lined  up  before  the  tin- 
shop,  the  general  shops,  the  house-painters, 
and  the  wine-shops.  And  where  do  you  think 
we  try  on  ?  Anywhere,  no  matter  where.  On 
the  staircase,  in  the  corridors,  in  the  shop 
itself,  three  women  together,  not  to  speak  of 
the  old  husbands  and  the  men  on  leave,  in  a 
little  parlor  decorated  with  two  opposite 
mirrors !  Absolute  promiscuity,  a  mob  that 
reminds  you  of  the  old  Neuilly  fair;  broken 
windows,  no  heat,  and  drafts  of  air  that 
pierce  through  the  lungs  !  My  dear,  I  bought 
a  charmeuse  gown  there  for  one  hundred 
and  seventy-five  francs  that  would  have  cost 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  at  Lanvin's!  The 

[  135  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Duchess  of  Chateauruque  goes  there;  the 
wife  of  the  ambassador  from  X.  goes,  too. 
Can  you  imagine  such  a  thing  ?  Oh !  we 
run  against  picturesque  things  during  this 
war !  Do  you  believe  that  life  can  go  on 
this  way?" 

"I  don't  think  so,  indeed,"  said  Odette. 

"I  see  that  you  aren't  pitying  us.  Well, 
for  my  part  I  tell  you  that  I  have  had  enough 
of  this  war,  and  that  I  despise  it !  Do  you 
understand  ?  I  despise  it.  Ugh !  ugh !  and 
ugh!" 

Odette  returned  home  along  the  darken- 
ing streets,  thinking  of  Mme.  de  Blauve, 
the  terrible.  She  felt  much  indulgence  for 
Mme.  de  Blauve,  the  terrible. 

XII 

VEDETTE  had  bought  a  newspaper.  Dur- 
ing the  night  the  Germans  had  made  a  series 
of  massed  attacks,  debouching  upon  Malan- 
court  from  three  directions  at  once.  Our 
troops  had  evacuated  the  devastated  village 
"while  keeping  its  outlets." 
[  136] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Once  again  she  tried  to  take  refuge  in  her 
memories  of  love.  But  this  evening  the  por- 
traits of  Jean  that  she  saw  around  her  did 
not  speak  to  her  of  love.  She  felt  that  Jean, 
if  he  were  there,  would  not  talk  of  love  that 
evening,  but  would  turn  away  like  an  over- 
wrought man  to  whom  the  beloved  one  in- 
sists upon  saying:  "Kiss  me!"  She  could 
distinctly  see  the  gesture  which,  however, 
she  had  seldom  known.  She  could  almost 
hear  Jean  saying:  "My  little  love,  I  am 
anxious.  ...  It  is  not  that  I  lack  con- 
fidence, but  they  are  advancing  step  by  step; 
it  is  disquieting,  disquieting.  You  will  think 
me  cruel,  but  I  should  be  glad  to  go  back 
there.  I  would  rather  be  there,  do  you  see  ? " 
If  he  had  been  with  her  on  permission  he 
would  have  gone  back !  What  torture  !  And 
she  said  to  herself:  "If  he  had  not  been 
killed  the  second  month  he  would  have  been 
killed  since  then:  twenty  months  without 
respite  under  the  shells 1" 

Days  passed;  the  German  attack  upon 
Verdun  wrought  upon  the  great  public  of 
France  a  great  silence.  No  noise,  not  an  ex- 

[  137  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


clamation,  no  excesses  in  Paris;  an  imposing 
calm;  a  quiet  crowd  upon  the  boulevards, 
perfect  order  even  on  Sunday;  almost 
gayety  around  the  men  who  were  home  on 
leave  who  went  about  surrounded  by  young 
women  in  short  skirts,  Anamite  caps  or 
toques  borrowed  from  the  Palais,  painfully 
walking  on  extravagantly  high  heels !  Be- 
tween four  o'clock  and  seven  every  one  was 
reading  the  newspaper.  They  were  sold  all 
through  the  city,  not  with  loud  shouts  as  if 
all  Europe  had  been  put  to  fire  and  sword, 
as  when  celebrated  trials  were  going  on; 
now  that  Europe  actually  was  put  to  fire 
and  sword,  with  less  uproar  than  after  the 
Auteuil  races.  In  almost  every  heart  the 
sublimity  of  the  French  struggle,  the  uni- 
versal respect  which  it  evoked  throughout 
the  world,  overcame  apprehension,  stifled 
the  sense  of  uncounted  losses,  and  domi- 
nated that  crater  on  the  banks  of  the  Meuse, 
in  eruption  over  an  extent  of  thirty-five 
kilometres,  its  lava  overwhelming  a  whole 
countryside. 
Odette  was  invited  to  dine  with  officers 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


who  had  returned  from  that  hell,  who  were 
going  back  to  it;  and  these  men  talked  futili- 
ties like  every  one  else:  partly  from  kindli- 
ness, partly  for  their  own  pleasure,  or  in 
courteous  resumption  of  the  decorum  of 
former  days.  Between  two  witticisms  they 
would  relate  an  episode  such  as  no  story  of 
the  age  of  fable  could  offer.  Many  of  them 
were  men  who  two  years  before  had  danced 
the  tango,  whom  strait-laced  old  twaddlers 
had  in  those  days  held  up  to  opprobrium. 
Thus  Odette  met  again  a  young  fellow  of 
twenty-four,  a  captain,  an  officer  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor,  lacking  several  fingers, 
wounded  in  the  leg  and  the  breast.  He  had 
the  same  simplicity,  the  same  childlike 
grace,  as  in  the  old  time  at  the  Casino  in 
Surville,  and  yet  he  had  taken  part  in  ac- 
tions infinitely  more  grand  than  those  of 
the  Homeric  heroes  or  of  the  wars  of  Caesar 
or  Alexander. 

He  kissed  a  lady's  hand,  and  that  same 
evening  went  back  to  the  jaws  of  the  vol- 
cano. And  that  same  week  the  word  came 
that  after  having  been  three  times  buried 

[  139  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


alive  in  the  undermined  earth,  his  young 
body  had  been  blown  to  atoms  on  Hill 
304- 

XIII 

HE  next  morning,  her  friend  La  Vil- 
laumer  having  come  to  see  her,  she  intro- 
duced a  subject  which  had  been  tormenting 
her. 

"The  individuality  of  the  soldier  is  not 
obliterated,"  said  La  Villaumer.  "  Either  he 
expects  to  come  through  safe,  believing  him- 
self to  be  a  privileged  person  among  the  un- 
lucky, or  else  he  says  to  himself,  'I  shall 
die,  but  it  will  be  for  something  worth 
while/  and  that  even  exalts  his  individual- 
ity. When  that  disappears  or  becomes  at- 
tenuated it  is  by  excess  of  suffering,  of  hop- 
ing against  hope  for  the  end  of  all  that  he 
is  enduring — mud,  cold,  the  incessant  wooing 
of  death,  and  ills  without  number,  have  an- 
nihilated in  him  all  power  of  thought  and 
feeling.  And  still  it  would  be  speaking  too 
strongly  to  say  that  he  goes  deliberately  to 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


meet  death.  Never  has  any  living  being 
failed  to  pay  to  death  the  honor  of  a  par- 
ticular deference." 

"Do  you  think,"  asked  Odette,  "that 
one's  individuality  can  be  suddenly  lost, 
or  is  it  not  rather  unconsciously  modified 
from  day  to  day  ?  You  see,  in  the  latter  case 
no  one  can  tell  how  far  the  metamorphosis 
may  go !  I  see  many  people  who  have 
changed  in  the  last  eighteen  months,  and 
who  seem  not  to  be  aware  of  it.  I  feel  very 
clearly  that  I  myself  am  different.  I  find 
only  one  part  of  myself  unchanged;  the  part 
which  binds  me  to  the  memory  of  my  poor 
husband;  nothing  there  is  modified  even  in 
the  very  slightest  degree — nothing;  when  I 
have  leisure  to  think  intently  of  him,  I  be- 
come again  precisely  the  woman  I  used  to 
be." 

"Yes,  but  with  grief  in  addition." 

"That  is  true." 

"It  is  that  which  modifies  us.  It  broadens 
us  when  it  finds  a  heart  in  us,  and  for  that 
matter  it  exists  only  so  far  as  it  finds  a  heart. 
It  holds  within  itself  many  possibilities. 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Your  grief  began  with  embracing  your  per- 
sonal calamity;  that  alone;  and  it  still  hugs 
it  to  itself,  that  is  most  natural;  but  it  has 
unconsciously  taken  a  further  step,  embrac- 
ing the  sorrows  of  others,  a  change  which 
you  never  looked  for.  And  that  is  making  of 
you  another  person." 

"Will  every  one  like  me  find  themselves 
a  tone  above  or  below  what  they  used  to  be 
— as  if  the  whole  keyboard  had  been  trans- 
posed?" 

"I  do  not  think  so,"  said  La  Villaumer. 
"Nature  changes  little.  Only  sensitive  souls 
are  modified,  and  they  are  rare.  It  is  they 
who  at  last,  at  the  long  last,  act  upon  and 
change  those  around  them.  Characters 
change  little,  never  fear !  Yet  this  war  will 
have  been  so  intense  that  those  at  least  who 
have  had  a  part  in  it  will  retain  something 
of  it,  like  a  strong  leaven  which  will  cause 
new  things  to  germinate.  We  must  expect 
new  things;  but  we  must  not  look  to  see  the 
human  race  thrown  off  its  centre.  Historians, 
sociologists  will  have  their  work  to  do,  while 
philosophers,  moralists,  the  general  run  of 
[  142  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


writers  may  go  on  as  they  have  done.  The 
word  'democracy/  for  instance,  will  cover 
much  paper — 

"Do  you  believe  in  such  a  thing,  your- 
self?" 

"I  believe  in  the  word  as  I  believe  in  all 
words.  It  is  a  mistake  to  disdain  the  old-fash- 
ioned verbalism — rhetoric,  eloquence.  The 
majority  of  words  are  hollow — yes,  but  they 
are  hollow  like  bells  whose  sonorousness 
may  by  itself  shake  the  whole  world.  Those 
who  use  words  are  inspired  by  various  things, 
and  generally  by  sentiments  that  they  can- 
not acknowledge;  yet  the  word  touches  the 
finest  chords  in  the  soul  of  men  whom  one 
wants  to  win  over.  'Democracy'  has  a 
tone- 

" Which  will  work  good? — or  evil?" 

"Alas !  The  popular  instinct  and  an  in- 
evitable necessity  urge  men,  in  spite  of 
words,  to  enslave  themselves,  and  they  will 
of  their  own  accord  submit  to  the  tyranny 
of  new  leaders,  new  groups  representing  in- 
terests of  which  the  crowd  will  know  noth- 
ing. Almost  all  my  pessimism  is  founded  on 

[143 1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


the  irresistible  character  of  this  law.'  Men 
must  be  commanded,  and  no  one  can  be  sure 
that  those  who  command  will  not  abuse  their 
authority  or  the  confidence  which  is  freely 
granted  to  them.  However,  the  official  pro- 
gramme of  democracy  will  be  to  devote  all 
its  effort  to  the  well-being  of  poor  humans 
who  have  not  an  average  of  fifty  years  to  live 
in  this  world,  who  no  longer  believe  in  an- 
other world,  and  who  in  truth  have  some 
legitimate  aspirations  to  live  their  few  years 
for  their  own  benefit,  and  with  as  little  pain 
as  possible." 

"Poor  men!" 

"Yes,  'poor  men!'  That  expresses  the 
immense  pity  that  will  well  up  in  every 
breast,  throughout  the  entire  universe.  Fate 
will  have  demanded  much  of  the  human 
race.  No  doubt  man  has  suffered  through  all 
time;  but  in  a  manner  so  prolonged  and 
so  scientifically  cruel — no!  At  all  events, 
never  have  men  suffered  in  such  great  num- 
bers; never  have  they  been  so  acutely  con- 
scious of  their  sufferings.  And  then,  in  for- 
mer times  men  who  suffered  had  not  been 

[  144  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


learnedly  informed  that  the  world  had  come 
to  the  end  of  suffering.  Those  who  are  suf- 
fering now  believed  themselves  to  have 
reached  the  highest  point  of  a  period  of  prog- 
ress in  every  direction.  Never  had  man  more 
firmly  believed  himself  to  be  on  the  border 
of  the  Promised  Land,  than  at  the  very  mo- 
ment when  he  stumbled  into  the  infernal 
pit !  What  an  aggravation  of  torment !  Men 
may  have  been  sacrificed  for  far-off  ends 
which  too  often  have  not  been  attained; 
they  may  have  been  obliged,  merely  for  their 
own  preservation  as  living  beings,  to  obliter- 
ate their  own  intelligence,  and  to  become 
through  long  years — they  themselves  have 
said  it — a  sort  of  brute.  Those  who  will  sur- 
vive will  not  ask  the  meaning  of  subtleties, 
or  will  not  be  in  a  condition  to  understand 
them.  They  will  have  only  one  thought: 
'And  now,  what  of  me,  me,  me  ?' j 
"A  revival  of  individuality,  then  ?" 
:'Yes,  but  of  a  fierce  individuality,  in 
which  all  that  has  for  so  long  a  time  been 
stifled  within  them  will  urge  them  on  to 
mistaken  acts;  or  else  of  an  exhausted  in- 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


dividuality  which  will  be  the  prey  of  ex- 
ploiters never  known  before." 

"Then  you  do  not  believe  in  a  general 
betterment  after  this  upheaval  ?" 

"  I  only  believe  in  more  or  less  prolonged 
periods  during  which  faith  in  betterment  is 
possible." 

"But,  after  all,  man  has  goodness  within 
him  !  He  carries  an  ideal  in  his  breast !" 

"That  is  to  say  that  he  carries  within 
himself — nowhere  but  in  himself — that  small 
portion  of  happiness  which  he  may  ever  hope 
to  attain.  In  fact,  I  hold  him  to  be  truly 
happy  only  as  he  exercises  goodness,  or  as  he 
aspires  to  what  he  deems  the  best.  Man,  the 
child,  the  savage,  very  clearly  recognizes  jus- 
tice, much  less  clearly  the  beautiful;  but  the 
idea  of  the  beautiful,  however  imperfect  it 
may  be  in  him,  moves  and  may  make  him 
better.  If  he  permits  himself  to  slide  down 
those  inclines  which  deviate  from  these 
ideas,  he  may  experience  a  dizzy  joy  of  a 
bad  kind.  He  may  work  himself  up  to  enjoy 
strange  pleasures,  but  seldom  without  at  the 
same  time  perceiving  that  he  is  duping  him- 

t 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


self,  and  that  pure  and  deep  joy  is  not  in 
these  things.  Yes,  it  is  in  himself  that  man 
finds  his  sole  source  of  felicity,  as  the  glow- 
worm his  light.  It  may  be  that  justice  is  en- 
tirely inapplicable  and  the  beautiful  wholly 
conventional,  but  what  we  may  be  sure  of  is 
that  the  inclination  toward  the  just  and  the 
beautiful  is  most  fruitful  in  happy  results, 
though  they  will  perhaps  never  find  absolute 
realization." 

"That  is  all  very  well;  but  in  fact  you  be- 
lieve neither  in  beauty  nor  in  justice !" 

"I  believe  in  the  passionate  endeavor  of 
man  toward  beauty  and  justice." 

"Which  he  will  never  attain  ?" 

La  Villaumer  suddenly  changed  his  tone, 
and  gazing  smilingly  upon  the  young  woman 
said: 

"That  would  be  paradise,  my  dear  friend; 
be  reasonable!" 


[  1471 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


XIV 

IT  was  the  last  hour  of  an  April  afternoon; 
budding  foliage  on  the  trees,  the  Arc  de 
Triomphe,  upon  which  every  saunterer  who 
looks  to-day,  looks  with  the  vision  of  the 
triumphal  procession  to  come,  and  the 
Champs- Elysees,  unequalled  promenade, 
which  Odette  and  La  Villaumer  had  so  often 
seen  crowded  and  joyful,  in  the  days  when 
the  world  was  happy. 

"Do you  remember?  Oh,  you  were  a  lit- 
tle girl,  loving  to  hang  around  Guignol  and 
trail  after  the  goat-carts.  But  I  was  then  no 
longer  very  young.  Do  you  remember  the 
time  when  there  were  no  automobiles,  and 
when  the  victorias  used  to  go  slpwly  down 
the  street  bearing  beautifully  dressed 
women  whom  one  had  time  to  admire,  to 
criticise,  to  recognize,  and  salute  ?  The  auto 
is  perfect,  but  the  best  it  can  do  is  to  rush 
from  one  place  to  another,  and  that  has  by 
no  means  the  interest  of  the  daily  proces- 
sion, when  it  seemed  that  every  one  still  had 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


time  to  live.  Excuse  my  capricious  imagina- 
tion, but  it  seems  to  me  that  these  machines 
were  made  just  to  bring  us  with  all  the  more 
haste  to  the  frightful  time  in  which  we  are 
living.  I  dare  say  this  to  you  because  I 
know  that  you  are  not  going  to  remind  me 
that  autos  are  rendering  admirable  service 
to  the  war,  especially  at  this  very  time. 
You  think,  like  me,  that  they  also  render 
service  to  our  enemies,  and  that  all  these 
rapid  means  of  reaching  the  battlefield  coin- 
cide with  a  war  without  a  conceivable  end. 
In  a  general  way,  scientific  inventions — 
don't  confuse  them  with  the  sciences,  which 
merit  all  veneration — conspire  to  give  to  this 
war  a  character  of  atrocity  to  which  no 
armed  conflict  has  ever  attained,  and  I  wish 
that  it  could  be  proved  to  me  that  they  al- 
leviate it  in  equal  proportion.  Think  only  of 
the  horror  which  this  *  progress '  in  the  art  of 
extermination  inspires.  How  many  brains 
are  unable  to  resist  it  ?  Civilians  are  dying 
every  day,  and  the  best  of  them,  who  go  to 
pieces  merely  from  imagining  the  war.  We 
see  them  fall  like  the  hollow  bark  which  still 

[  H9  1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


seems  to  support  a  tree.  You  yourself  did 
not  know  in  your  childhood  the  amazement 
that  Jules  Verne's  'Nautilus'  caused.  But 
you  witnessed  the  crazy  conduct  of  your 
contemporaries  the  first  time  they  saw  an 
airship  sailing  about  in  the  air.  It  was  pretty, 
to  be  sure,  and  the  audacity  of  the  early 
pilots  roused  us  all  to  enthusiasm.  Recall  to 
mind  the  saying  that  was  current  on  the 
greensward  at  Deauville  when  twelve  air- 
planes arrived  from  Havre,  three  hundred 
metres  above  the  earth,  all  rosy  in  the  sun- 
set rays.  'The  flying  Peace,'  some  one  said. 
I  shrugged  my  shoulders  sorrowfully,  be- 
cause I  know  that  in  the  face  of  an  astound- 
ing invention  one  must  always  think  of  the 
homicidal  use  to  which  man  may  put  it. 
Man  has  once  again  stolen  the  fire  of  heaven; 
a  new  Zeus  will  punish  him  for  it.  Humanity 
will  blindly  and  with  ecstasy  invent  the  in- 
strument of  its  own  destruction.  By  means 
of  an  admirable  scientific  instrument  it  will 
commit  wholesale  suicide  with  a  beatific 
smile.  Man  has  already  abdicated  in  favor 
of  a  machine.  The  war  that  is  being  waged  is 

1 150] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


a  war  no  longer  of  men  but  of  material. 
Man  is  belittled;  the  machine  surpasses  him ! 
A  rudimentary  intelligence  suffices  to  set  the 
true  force  in  motion.  We  are  still  believers 
in  the  ancient  saying  that  the  true  force  is 
manly  virtue,  the  fine,  old-fashioned  bravery. 
We  have  belittled  the  only  thing  in  the  world 
which  might  be  wholly  great — man.  Do  we 
profess  to  worship  that  bravery  of  man 
which  all  the  past  has  justified  ?  Why,  by  the 
scientific  character  of  war  it  has  become — 
one  dares  permit  himself  the  blasphemy — 
almost  a  sign  of  inferiority.  We  reckon  upon 
the  mystical  value  of  our  bravery,  and  we 
send  our  men  by  the  thousands  against  an 
army  of  tools  !  By  virtue  of  our  century-old 
prejudices  we  honor  only  the  man  who  ex- 
poses himself,  sacrifices  himself,  furnishes, 
however  uselessly,  his  proofs  of  courage, 
when  the  glory,  of  our  arms  will  belong  to 
him  who  shall  most  securely  have  sheltered 
his  divisions  behind  gigantic  steam-ham- 
mers !  The  applied  sciences  have  caused  a 
moral  revolution.  By  riveting  man,  who  is 
before  all  else  a  soul,  to  material  elements, 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


they  have  destroyed  whatever  might  be 
justifiable  in  the  great  contests  of  humanity. 
A  paltry  little  engineer  behind  his  disguised 
heavy  cannon,  or  with  his  mitrailleuse  under 
thirty  metres  of  cement,  counts  for  more 
than  our  superb  heroes  with  their  courage, 
their  loyalty,  and  their  white  gloves.  Man, 
chained  like  a  galley-slave  to  a  machine,  to 
a  chemical  substance,  is  forced  to  unlearn 
what  it  is  to  be  a  man.  He  appears  very  in- 
telligent when  he  is  equipped  with  algebra 
and  terminology;  yes,  we  must  grant  to 
matter  all  that  it  can  give,  but  pause  a  little: 
have  you  not  an  impression  that  something 
superior  is  lacking  in  so  abnormal  a  com- 
pound ?  They  have  domesticated  the  forces 
of  nature;  they  believe  themselves  Titans; 
and  there  they  stand  glowering  at  one  an- 
other like  beasts;  they  cannot  distinguish 
themselves  from  these  material  fabrics  that 
surprise  and  overwhelm  them.  They  call 
themselves  masters  of  matter,  and  matter  is 
all  the  time  jeering  at  them.  Engineering 
genius  is  probably  not  the  result  of  a  knowl- 
edge of  matter,  but  of  a  knowledge  of  man." 
[  152] 


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XV 

LT  that  period  people  were  still  dulling 
their  senses  with  words  and  stupefying 
their  minds  with  discussions,  if  so  they 
might  divert  them  from  that  one  place 
which  for  the  time  being  was  as  the  pivot  of 
the  world,  upon  which  they  had  for  six 
months  felt  that  all  depended,  as  two  years 
before  all  had  for  ten  days  depended  upon 
the  battle  of  the  Marne. 

La  Villaumer  went  to  his  club;  his  lip 
curled  with  an  almost  wicked  smile  at  the 
thought  of  the  ridiculously  false  news  which 
that  evening,  as  every  other,  he  was  about 
to  hear.  Then  he  reflected  that  the  charm- 
ing Odette,  whom  he  had  just  quitted^  was 
very  young,  and  asked  himself  whom  she 
might  marry. 

Odette,  still  carried  away  with  the  life  at 
Surville,  sick  at  heart  with  those  friends  of 
hers  who  were  doing  nothing  but  dying  of  en- 
nui and  so  demoralizing  those  around  them, 
found  comfort  in  frequenting  such  hives  of 

[  153  1 


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activity  as  the  Franco-Belgian  headquarters 
and  its  numerous  annexes,  all  congregated  in 
the  same  building  on  the  Champs-Elysees, 
where  it  seemed  that  all  the  misery  of  the 
world  was  perpetually  going  up  and  down 
its  staircases,  without  respite  and  without 
end.  She  would  go  there  as  if  in  answer  to  a 
summons.  So  many,  so  many  unfortunates 
who  had  lost  their  dearest  possessions,  their 
house,  their  village  church !  Meeting  them 
on  the  muddy  steps,  she  seemed  to  see, 
reflected  in  their  startled  eyes,  a  bit  of 
countryside,  a  poplar-bordered  road,  a  bit  of 
garden,  a  hillside,  fields  of  beets  or  of  wheat. 
She  had  travelled,  she  knew  all  those  sights 
which  are  the  natural  companions  of  the  life 
of  men.  The  odor  of  the  hamlets  came  back 
to  her,  the  warm  breath  of  stables,  the  noi- 
some scent  of  stagnant  pools,  the  sharp 
smell  of  the  tanneries  in  the  north,  the  bal- 
samic fragrance  of  cedar  smoke  from  the 
bakeries,  the  appetizing  aroma  of  warm 
bread,  so  little  known  in  Paris.  Then  she 
would  picture  to  herself  the  bewilderment 
of  all  these  folk  who  had  found  refuge  in  a 

1 154] 


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great,  strange  city  to  which  they  were  not 
born,  of  these  families  who  would  never, 
never  again  see  anything  but  the  ruins  of 
their  villages,  their  countryside  made  un- 
recognizable by  the  absence  of  every  elm, 
every  bit  of  woods !  She  could  have  em- 
braced them  as  they  passed  her;  she  longed 
to  give  them  everything  she  possessed, 
things  which,  alas !  could  not  replace  what 
they  had  lost ! 

She  thought  to  herself:  "What  have  they 
done  ?  Of  what  are  these  people  guilty  ?  Why 
are  these  men  tortured  ?  Why  were  they  cap- 
tured and  their  poor  homes  and  little  fields 
destroyed,  and  the  sons  of  their  blood,  who 
alone  gave  a  moral  meaning  to  their  lives  ? 
Why  were  not  these  people  masters  of  them- 
selves ?  Why  were  they  the  prey  of  bandits 
who  consider  even  their  own  people  as 
puppets,  created  to  serve  their  vainglory  as 
soldiers,  and  who  care  less  for  the  existence 
of  thousands  of  living  creatures  than  a  child 
for  his  tin  soldiers?"  Her  heart  throbbed, 
her  soul  revolted.  She  reached  the  top  of  the 
stairs. 

[ 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


To  this  building  she  had  come  without  in- 
vitation to  see  an  American  woman  who  was 
freely  and  calmly  consecrating  her  fortune, 
her  intelligence,  and  her  time  to  the  un- 
fortunates of  the  war.  She  came  to  ask  if 
there  was  not  something  that  she  could  do. 
The  American  woman  looked  at  her  with  a 
smile. 

"You  have  something  better  to  do  for 
your  country." 

"What?  "asked  Odette. 

"Oh,  we  will  speak  of  that  later." 

This  answer  had  already  been  made  to 
her.  It  had  been  said  to  her  even  at  Surville, 
in  the  hospital,  and  with  a  mysterious  air. 

She  was  disturbed  by  it,  and  spoke  of  it, 
on  a  venture,  to  Simone  de  Prans,  whom  she 
saw  that  evening. 

Simone  and  her  husband  both  smiled  as 
the  American  lady  had  done. 

"What  do  you  all  mean  ?" 

"Don't  be  disturbed,"  said  Pierre  de 
Prans  seriously;  "take  care  of  yourself. 
A  woman  like  you  has  services  to  give." 

"Well,  I  must  do  something,"  said  Odette, 
[  156] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


trembling  under  her  veil,  "and  as  it  is,  I 
am  doing  absolutely  nothing  with  my  ten 
fingers !" 

XVI 

WHENEVER  the  cloud  of  anguish  rises 
even  a  little  from  the  sky  of  Paris/'  said  La 
Villaumer,  "this  city,  so  marvellously  alive, 
clasps  to  itself  life,  of  whatever  kind,  with  a 
simple,  natural  impulse,  without  immodera- 
tion, but  with  a  secret  smile,  always  ready. 
Yet  this  power  of  life,  on  the  whole  so  beau- 
tiful, has  something  that  brings  a  frown  to 
the  brow  of  the  onlooker;  for  it  has  within  it 
insensibility  and  forgetfulness. 

"How  disconcerting  it  is  to  see  this  new, 
mutilated  humanity,  pass  in  the  streets  al- 
most without  attracting  attention.  Young 
men  in  uniform,  or  returned  to  civil  life 
minus  a  leg,  on  crutches,  with  an  artificial 
limb,  leaning  on  a  cane  like  an  old  man,  with 
an  empty  coat  sleeve,  an  eye  gone,  nothing 
left  of  the  nose  but  two  breathing-holes,  the 
jaw  moulded  over  like  a  lump  of  potter's 

[  157] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


clay — or  led  along,  sightless !  They  hardly 
arouse  compassion,  seldom  even  curiosity. 
There  are  so  many  of  them!  You  can  see  the 
like  in  any  place.  War  crosses,  military 
medals,  the  Legion  of  Honor  on  the  breast  of 
a  mere  youth,  which  at  one  time  would  have 
attracted  admiring  glances  and  brought 
tears  to  women's  eyes,  are  now  hardly 
noticed.  There  are  so  many  who  have  re- 
ceived or  have  deserved  them  !  Most  of  those 
who  possess  them  now  wear  only  the  ribbon 
on  their  jackets  like  civilians.  The  long  dura- 
tion and  the  barbarism  of  the  war  have 
spoiled  everything.  Men  whose  exploits  cast 
into  the  shade  the  most  famous  examples  of 
history  with  which  the  memory  of  school 
children  is  crammed,  refuse  to  be  called 
heroes.  Heroes  !  There  are  so  many  of  them ! 
It  was  not  to  distinguish  themselves,  nor  to 
cover  their  families  with  honor,  nor  even  to 
set  a  noble  example,  that  so  many  men  have 
wrought  prodigies;  they  did  them  modestly, 
because  they  had  to  be  done  in  order  to  put 
an  end  to  an  abomination.  With  many  the 
idea  even  of  the  country  is  attenuated  in 

[  158] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


favor  of  something  which  makes  much  less 
appeal  to  the  heart,  the  motive  of  which  is 
only  the  cold  persuasion  that  militarism 
must  be  destroyed;  one  must  fight  for  very 
hatred  of  fighting.  And  here  is  something 
new,  this  vast  uprising  for  war  is  producing 
no  enthusiasm  for  war;  it  is  animated  only 
by  hatred  of  war.  All  these  brave  men,  rid- 
dled like  sieves,  rescued  from  an  ordeal  with- 
out precedent,  are  cherishing  no  ambition  to 
march  in  a  procession  of  victors,  under  wav- 
ing flags,  amid  the  acclamations  of  women, 
children,  and  old  men;  they  had  the  rudi- 
mentary purpose  of  the  peasant  who  strug- 
gles with  a  mad  dog,  and  who  having 
downed  him  digs  a  hole,  buries  the  carrion, 
washes  his  hands  at  the  pump,  and  goes  lin 
to  dinner. 

"Germany  has  robbed  man  of  his  divine 
childhood.  In  less  than  two  years  all  these 
men  have  grown  old;  that  charming  faculty 
of  innocent  enthusiasm  which  had  often  de- 
ceived him,  but  which  had  given  him  joys 
never  to  be  replaced,  has  been  withered.  The 
most  deplorable  ruins  which  the  monster  has 

1 159] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


spread  abroad  over  our  land  are  perhaps 
not  so  much  the  splendid  monuments  of 
Belgium  and  France,  as  the  youth  of  hu- 
manity, that  had  seemed  eternal,  that  was 
bearing  it  on  to  a  great  outburst  of  a  com- 
mon hope — faith  in  Fraternity,  faith  in 
Liberty,  faith  in  Justice,  potent  religion  of 
Progress.  Cold  reason,  like  the  German  gas, 
has  poisoned  all  this  fresh  and  ebullient 
vigor.  The  whole  world  has  become  allied, 
only  to  strangle  a  jackal.  No  man  who  has 
come  back  from  the  too  severe  ordeal  will 
ever  again  feel  the  desire  to  enjoy  the  days 
that  yet  remain  to  him.  Scepticism,  which 
used  to  seem  only  a  way  of  looking  at  things, 
cherished  by  very  distinguished  gentlemen, 
has  now  taken  possession  of  the  mass.  But  it 
has  become  commonplace,  and  so  has  ceased 
all  relations  with  its  brother,  dilettantism. 
You  will  see  what  sort  of  thing  realistic 
scepticism  will  become/' 

"  People  will  always  dream,"  said  Odette. 


[160] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


XVII 


o 


'DETTE  returned  to  Surville  in  the  be- 
ginning of  August.  It  was  a  time  of  great 
heat.  The  second  anniversary  of  mobiliza- 
tion had  been  observed.  War  had  become  an 
accepted  condition.  Many  already  found  it 
difficult  to  remember  a  state  of  peace.  At  the 
hospital  there  were  even  discussions  as  to 
how  things  had  been  there  before  the  war. 
There  were  those  who,  though  they  had  then 
been  living  in  Surville,  could  not  recall  them 
to  mind.  "You  remember  the  inaugural  ad- 
dress of  the  head  doctor,  the  i6th  of  August, 
before  the  first  train  of  wounded  came?" 
Some  of  the  women  insisted  that  he  had 
given  an  antimilitarist  lecture;  others  that 
he  had  spoken  only  against  alcohol;  others 
that  he  had  given  an  eloquently  patriotic  ad- 
dress; some  said  that  it  was  not  he  who  had 
spoken,  but  the  surgeon,  a  very  handsome 
man;  and  still  others  that  the  address  was 
given  on  another  date.  One  lady  could  only 
remember  the  first  time  she  had  posed  to  the 
[  161  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


photographer  in  white  blouse  and  cap.  The 
first  arrival  of  wounded,  who  had  come 
from  Charleroi  on  August  25,  were  con- 
fused with  those  who  had  come  in  Septem- 
ber. Two  years  !  What  a  long  time  when  one 
has  seen  only  wretchedness  upon  wretched- 
ness !  Nothing  pleasant  for  twenty-four 
months !  The  communique  of  the  battle  of 
the  Marne  ?  Yes,  that  counted  for  some- 
thing; but  at  the  time  no  one  understood  its 
full  importance;  there  had  been  no  public  re- 
joicing. Our  later  long  and  magnificent  vic- 
tories that  merely  held  back  the  enemy 
presented  to  the  mind  nothing  like  what  is 
generally  thought  of  as  military  success;  it 
was  only  after  a  while  that  their  importance 
was  recognized,  when  new  misfortunes  had 
touched  us  elsewhere.  Two  years  of  dull, 
black  weariness,  of  constant  apprehension, 
of  bereavement  upon  bereavement. 

This  year  a  good  many  foreigners  had  in- 
vaded the  beach.  The  tennis-courts  were  oc- 
cupied by  young  men  from  beyond  the  sea, 
bringing  up  the  memory  of  former  days;  the 
crowd  was  enlivened  by  a  profusion  of  multi- 
[  162] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


colored  Japanese  lanterns;  the  sea  dashed 
against  the  glossy  flesh  of  women  who 
seemed  as  natural  as  Aphrodite;  automobiles 
were  almost  as  much  in  the  way  as  in  happier 
days;  and  between  the  rows  of  tents  among 
the  manifold  tints  of  colored  stuffs,  beside 
the  waves  where  so  many  beautiful  limbs 
were  disporting  themselves,  was  a  race  of 
beings  that  might  have  been  deemed  pe- 
culiar, coming,  going,  or  remaining  motion- 
less; they  were  the  men  who  had  escaped 
from  the  fire.  They  wore  nondescript  gar- 
ments, they  lacked  one  limb  or  even  two, 
they  hobbled,  their  armpits  strained  by 
crutches,  or  lay  at  length  on  the  warm  sand, 
smoking,  timid  of  appearance,  exchanging 
remarks  hardly  comprehensible,  keeping 
silent,  too,  thinking — of  what  ? 

This  last  spectacle  alone  seemed  in 
Odette's  eyes  to  merit  consideration.  She 
had  lived  the  greater  part  of  the  time  among 
the  wounded,  she  had  also  lived  in  Paris  with 
the  social  world.  "All  is  over,"  she  would  say 
to  herself;  "nothing  will  heal  all  this;  it  is 
mere  mummery  to  ape  the  life  of  other  days; 

[  163 1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


all  that  is  blotted  out;  La  Villaumer  was 
right  when  he  said:  'Men  have  suffered  too 
much/" 

It  was  in  this  very  place — there,  oppo- 
site, at  the  hotel — that  she  had  become  ac- 
quainted with  Jean.  They  were  pleased  with 
one  another  at  the  first  glance,  carried  out  of 
themselves,  even.  She  remembered  how  mad 
with  love  she  had  been  in  those  garden 
walks,  between  those  tennis-screens,  on  that 
beach,  and  along  that  terrace  which  now 
she  was  treading  overwhelmed  with  despair, 
a  despair  that  she  could  not  name,  greater 
than  herself,  greater  than  the  broad  horizon 
of  the  sea,  greater  than  all  things. 

She  had  forgotten  nothing.  She  recalled 
all  the  preludes  of  marriage,  then  those  first 
vacations,  their  dual  solitude  in  the  midst  of 
the  throng;  kisses  exchanged  on  these  dunes, 
along  these  roadsides,  in  some  charming 
farm  orchard,  or  on  certain  evenings  before 
the  fairylike  spectacle  of  the  phosphorescent 
sea;  she  remembered  that  room  in  the  Hotel 
de  Normandie  where  he  had  left  her  a  few 
days  before  the  2d  of  August !  And  she  re- 

1 164] 


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called  to  mind  the  beautiful  sky  of  that  day, 
and  the  tocsin  pealing  from  all  the  church- 
towers  of  the  countryside,  and  the  rolling  of 
the  drum,  and  the  young  men  raising  their 
hats.  How  many  of  them  were  alive  to-day  ? 

XVIII 

had  hardly  finished  luncheon  when 
she  heard  the  jingling  of  the  little  bell  at  the 
wooden  gate  of  her  garden.  Mme.  de  Calouas 
came  in. 

Mme.  de  Calouas  found  Odette  sur- 
rounded by  photographs  of  Jean.  They  were 
on  the  walls,  the  chimneypiece,  the  tables, 
the  desk,  the  piano.  Odette  had  taken  the 
opportunity  of  her  journey  to  carry  to  the 
photographer  every  film  that  she  possessed; 
she  had  had  them  enlarged,  and  she  was  sur- 
rounded by  Jean  as  if  Jean  had  become  a 
whole  people;  she  saw  him  in  every  room  of 
her  cottage  and  in  all  places;  she  felt  some- 
what tranquil  only  when  she  could  see  him. 
If  she  seldom  or  never  spoke  of  him  else- 
where, as  soon  as  she  returned  home  she  be- 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


longed  only  to  him.  She  talked  to  him,  con- 
sulted him,  and  heard  the  replies  which,  in 
accordance  with  his  character,  he  would 
have  made  her  to-day,  if  he  had  lived,  if  he 
had  known  what  was  taking  place. 

Mme.  de  Calouas  looked  about  her  at  all 
these  likenesses. 

Mme.  de  Calouas  was  not  among  the  num- 
ber of  hospital  nurses  who  had  been  re- 
warded by  the  epidemic  medal,  although  she 
had  not  absented  herself  for  forty-eight 
hours  since  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  and 
though  her  position  in  the  hospital  was  a 
most  important  one;  but  neglect  of  this  sort 
was  either  indifferent  to  her  or  it  flattered 
her  pride.  She  belonged  to  a  family  of  which 
every  member  professed  absolute  indiffer- 
ence to  rewards,  especially  to  any  that  might 
come  from  the  public  powers,  and  this  al- 
though it  was  the  tradition  of  the  family  to 
addict  themselves  constantly  to  the  highest 
duties.  The  magistrates  among  them  had  re- 
tired some  thirty-five  years  previously;  the 
officers  remained  fixed  in  the  rank  of  cap- 
tain. In  the  Morbihan  the  expression  "the 
[  166] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Captains  de  Calouas"  had  become  a  com- 
mon locution.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  war 
"the  Captains  de  Calouas"  had  shown 
themselves  to  be  men  of  the  old-fashioned 
kind  who  considered  that  the  finest  part  one 
can  play  in  the  face  of  the  enemy  is  to  be 
killed  by  him.  Their  unanimous  and  hardy 
bravery  had,  indeed,  crowned  nearly  every 
one  of  them  with  the  halo  of  sacrifice.  Those 
with  whom  death  would  have  absolutely 
nothing  to  do  had  this  time  risen  in  rank, 
and  had  received  the  cross  after  a  succession 
of  actions  and  for  exceptional  valor  even 
amidst  so  many  astonishing  deeds.  Of  seven 
of  them,  only  one  was  left,  recently  named 
lieutenant-colonel,  with  an  artificial  arm  and 
a  damaged  lung. 

Mme.  de  Calouas  excused  herself  for  com- 
ing so  early,  but  said  that  she  had  felt  an 
irresistible  desire  to  talk  freely  with  a  friend 
in  whom  she  had  discerned  "a  choice  soul." 

"  In  the  sort  of  convent  in  which  we  lived 
so  long  side  by  side,"  she  said,  "I  consider 
myself  somewhat  as  a  mother  to  you,  if  you 
will  permit  me  to  say  so,  seeing  that  I  had 

1 167] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


the  responsibility  of  opening  its  door  to  you. 
Will  you  let  me  talk  to  you  as  a  mother  ?" 

"I  have  great  need  of  it,"  said  Odette; 
"  I  have  no  mother,  and  I  am  a  widow " 

She  pointed  around  to  the  photographs  of 
the  dead.  It  was  as  if  she  were  in  a  cemetery, 
herself  living  in  one  of  its  vaults.  Her  eyes 
filled  with  sudden  tears. 

"I  love  him  as  on  the  day  he  died;  as  on 
that  other  day,  that  dreadful  day  when  he 
left  me — I  cannot  cry  all  this  upon  the 
housetops.  You,  madame,  have  suffered 
like  me,  more  even  than  me,  the  pain  of  this 
horrible  war;  we  can  no  longer  speak  of  our 
dead !  We  have  no  right  to  show  our  grief ! 
There  are  too  many  griefs,  too  many  dead. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  talk  about  him;  I 
have  found  only  one  person  who  would  con- 
sent to  recall  him  with  kindliness,  and  she  is 
a  Parisian,  a  self-centred  woman  who  has 
managed  not  to  permit  herself  to  be  touched 
by  the  war,  a  young  woman,  like  me,  but  al- 
ready a  woman  of  former  days.  Who  is  there, 
henceforth,  who  can  dwell  on  her  personal 
sorrow?" 

[  168] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"It  remains  to  be  seen,  my  poor  dear," 
said  Mme.  de  Calouas,  "whether  what  you 
say  is  an  evil.  I  mean  an  evil  for  the  time  in 
which  we  live,  during  this  war  which  has  no 
end,  and  during  the  many  years  after  this 
war;  in  a  word,  during  all  our  lives — even 
yours.  You  know,  my  child,  that  I  am  a 
woman  bound  to  all  the  old  customs.  In  our 
family  widowhood  is  a  serious  thing,  and 
usually  a  thing  for  life.  But  this  war  has 
modified  even  our  most  firmly  established 
customs.  Great  necessities,  painful  new 
duties,  lie  before  us.  We  have  been  obliged 
to  put  down,  with  a  strong  hand,  many  of 
our  feelings;  we  are  bound  to  subordinate 
our  personality  and  its  most  sacred  tradi- 
tions to  the  common  weal.  To  mourn  a  be- 
loved husband — what  is  more  touching  and 
more  worthy  in  a  young  woman  ?  But,  my 
little  friend,  let  me  confide  to  you  a  cruel 
truth,  of  which  you  are  already  beginning  to 
be  aware.  You  were  just  saying  to  me  that 
we  can  no  longer  talk  about  our  dead  hus- 
bands, however  gloriously  they  may  have 
been  killed;  it  is  equally  the  case  of  both  of 

1 169] 


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us.  Well,  forgive  me  for  what  I  am  going  to 
say — it  is  one  of  the  most  cruel  features  of 
this  time  that  has  no  name — to  mourn  our 
husbands  is  a  sort  of  self-indulgence,  it  is  a 
personal  civility,  it  is  almost  a  delight !  I 
shall  startle  you,  but  I  must  say  it  to  you,  I 
who  am  twenty  years  older  than  you,  be- 
cause I  recognize  in  you  a  noble  heart, 
broadened  rather  than  belittled  by  this 
storm.  My  poor  child,  you  have  no  right  to 
remain  surrounded  by  these  likenesses  of  the 
dead.  If  we  belonged  to  ourselves,  we  would 
give  ourselves  up  to  what  our  hearts  would 
prefer — weak,  human  creatures  that  we  are  ! 
We  would  choose  to  remember  and  to 
mourn.  But  we  are  no  longer  our  own !  Let 
us  imitate  our  husbands !  They  would  cer- 
tainly have  preferred  to  live.  To  assert  the 
contrary  is  mere  boasting.  But  without 
hesitating  they  accepted  death.  They  un- 
derstood, every  one  of  them,  that  they  were 
not  their  own.  Nor  are  we  our  own.  I  give 
you  my  word  of  honor — and  you  can  never 
imagine  the  object  of  reverence  or  the  cause 
of  joy  that  for  twenty  years  my  husband  was 
[  170  ] 


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to  me — if  I  were  still  young  enough  to  have 
children  I  would  marry  again  to-morrow !  I 
am  too  old,  and  this  is  why  you  see  me  take 
so  much  pains  in  other  directions.  What  the 
country  asks  of  you  is  not  work  like  what  I 
am  doing " 

"I  prefer  that  work,"  said  Odette. 

"You  are  not  your  own." 

"What  the  world  asks  of  me  is  worse  than 
death/' 

"Our  husbands  endured  the  sufferings  of 
hell,  and  died  only  afterward " 

Odette  burst  into  sobs. 

"My  child,  my  dear  little  friend,"  said 
Mme.  de  Calouas,  "I  beg  you  not  to  give 
way  to  despondency  of  any  sort.  Believe 
what  I  say,  and  do  not  think  me  hard,  as  I 
may  appear  to  be.  I  am  not  hard.  I  have 
simply  covered  myself  with  a  shell,  because 
we  are  engaged  in  a  merciless  conflict.  Let 
us  not  permit  ourselves  to  be  weakened 
whether  by  catastrophe  or  painful  loss  or 
bitter  trial.  To  give  way  to  grief  is  to  grow 
less  strong.  For  the  time,  we  can  be  sure  only 
of  suffering.  Each  grief  should  give  us  the 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


opportunity  not  to  weep,  but  to  do  more 
than  before.  There  is  only  one  aim.  How 
that  simplifies  things !  We  look  toward  it, 
and  toward  it  alone.  We  direct  our  eyes 
neither  to  the  right  nor  the  left.  Anything 
may  happen :  we  are  ready,  we  will  not  fail. 
We  may  be  asked  for  more  than  is  in  reason, 
but  we  have  offered  our  services.  No  hes- 
itation, no  boasting;  above  all,  no  consid- 
eration of  ourselves;  let  us  leave  all  that  to 
women  of  petty  minds,  since  it  is  the  only 
motive  that  can  move  them.  We  who  know 
better  must  set  them  an  example." 

XIX 

VEDETTE  went  to  her  room  to  bathe  her 
eyes,  but  it  was  all  in  vain;  she  began  again 
to  weep;  she  had  an  invincible  desire  for 
tears;  she  wept  until  the  hour  for  going  to 
the  hospital. 

She  had  photographs  of  Jean  in  her  bed- 
room as  in  her  drawing-room.  And  now  it 
seemed  to  her  that  to  give  way  to  her  grief 
was,  indeed,  "a  delight"!  She  was  in  the 
[  172  ] 


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habit  of  giving  herself  up  to  sorrow;  who 
would  have  believed  that  it  was  a  way  of 
giving  herself  up  to  pleasure  ?  Yet  in  com- 
parison with  the  excessive  sadness  of  the 
present  time,  to  wrap  herself  up,  weeping,  in 
the  memory  of  happy  days,  was  to  set  herself 
apart,  to  abstract  herself  in  herself,  to  in- 
toxicate herself  with  the  fragrance  of  the  in- 
cense on  her  own  private  altar,  to  divest  her- 
self of  strength  for  the  great  common  act 
which  it  had  given  her  so  much  pain  to  ac- 
cept, but  the  imperious  command  of  which 
she  could  not  now  deny. 

"It  is  still  a  pleasure,"  she  repeated  to 
herself.  What  chaos  must  have  been  wrought 
that  her  most  acute  sufferings,  recalled  to 
her  by  imagination,  should  take  on  the  form 
of  felicity ! 

Mme.  de  Calouas  had  affirmed  that,  for 
her  part,  had  she  fewer  years,  she  would  not 
hesitate  to  marry  again ! — Ah,  no,  that  was 
too  much !  Anything,  anything,  but  that ! 

'They  endured  the  pains  of  hell,  and  did 
not  die  until  afterward  ? '  Yes,  their  martyr- 
dom, their  death,  I  would  gladly  accept  for 

[  173  ] 


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myself;  but  I  refuse  to  be  false  to  my  adored 
memories " 

Another  burst  of  grief  overwhelmed  her 
in  which  her  whole  tortured  personality  re- 
sisted and  asserted  itself.  She  seized  Jean's 
photographs  and  kissed  them  frantically. 
She  would  fain  detest  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  and  give  herself  wholly  to  this  one 
sacred  memory.  For  the  moment  she  spurned 
the  opinion  of  Mme.  de  Calouas:  "If  it  is  a 
self-indulgence,  let  it  be  so !  I  yield  myself 
to  this  self-indulgence !  I  love  Jean,  I  have 
never  loved  any  one  but  Jean !" 

In  the  old  days  she  used  to  bicycle  with 
Jean,  and  the  two,  side  by  side,  often  ex- 
changing glances,  sometimes  throwing  kisses, 
would  roll  breathlessly  along  the  Norman 
roads,  between  the  high,  thick  hedges  where 
they  were  as  if  enclosed,  with  only  one  way 
out,  where  they  had  nothing  to  do  but  roll 
along.  An  auto  would  appear;  Jean  would  go 
first,  Odette  following  in  his  track,  breathing 
his  perfume  until  the  cloud  of  dust  and  the 
smell  of  oil  or  of  gasolene  choked  her.  Some- 
times, going  slowly,  they  would  take  one  an- 

1 174] 


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other  by  the  hand.  She  was  flexible,  slight, 
and  lightly  clothed;  she  would  play  acrobatic 
tricks  on  her  machine,  and  her  joyful  agility 
would  fill  Jean  with  delight.  Suddenly  he 
would  jump  down,  she  would  follow  his 
example,  and  they  would  exchange  a  kiss, 
folded  lingeringly  in  one  another's  arms. 
There  was  a  little  wayside  inn  where,  under 
the  arbor,  they  would  call  for  cider  with 
bread  and  white  cheese.  They  had  never 
met  any  one  there;  the  wind  would  ruffle  the 
foliage  around  them,  the  dog  would  gaze  at 
them  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  the  host- 
ess would  serve  them  with  a  smile.  More 
often  than  elsewhere  they  used  to  go  to  the 
orchard,  the  incomparable  orchard  of  the 
farm  at  the  foot  of  the  ruins  of  Saint-Gin- 
golph,  where  they  were  welcomed  as  friends, 
both  so  young,  so  beautiful,  so  radiant  with 
happiness.  There  in  the  autumn  they  would 
walk  in  the  little  paths  bordered  with  sorrel 
and  thyme;  where  dahlias  were  growing  be- 
side onions,  where  there  were  currant-bushes 
loaded  with  rubies,  in  a  corner  a  fig-tree 
whose  fruit  never  ripened,  under  which  they 

1 175 1 


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must  bend  to  go  to  the  pear-trees.  There 
Odette  would  bite  into  a  pear  as  she  passed 
it,  and  this  would  make  Jean  scold;  he 
would  gather  the  pear,  nibble  at  the  place 
which  her  teeth  had  damaged,  and  carry  it 
to  the  good-natured  farmer's  wife,  saying: 
"Just  see  what  mischief  we  have  done !" 

"Oh!"  the  farmer's  wife  would  simply 
reply,  "Madame  seems  to  enjoy  it  so!" 

Delicious  and  terrible  memories !  Odette 
could  not  endure  again  to  visit  those  places, 
so  near,  yet  which  would  now  have  given 
her  so  much  pain  ! 

Nor  could  she  again  go  in  the  evening,  at 
nightfall,  to  the  edge  of  the  sea,  where  in 
each  vague  shadow  she  would  have  thought 
she  saw  the  shadow  of  Jean.  They  used  to 
love  to  wander  there  in  the  warm  obscu- 
rity of  August.  The  long-drawn  moan  of  the 
sea  was  to  them  a  cradle-song  composed  by 
a  musician  of  genius.  No  doubt  Odette  used 
to  see  in  those  days  fewer  large  waves  than 
to-day;  but  in  those  days  all  things  blended 
with  her  love  and  seemed  marvellous  to  her. 
Sometimes  Jean,  who  had  his  boyish  ways, 

[  176] 


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would  amuse  himself  by  leaving  her,  sud- 
denly disappearing  from  her  eyes  in  the 
darkness.  She  would  call  him  in  an  anxious 
voice,  "Jean !"  And  she  would  always  recog- 
nize his  shadow  as  he  drew  near  by  his  ex- 
tending his  arms  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  and 
throwing  them  around  her,  to  press  her  to 
him  the  moment  he  met  her.  In  those  days 
they  would  hear  afar  off  the  music  of  the 
violins,  and  would  see  above  the  dune  the 
dark  villas  and  the  illuminated  hotels.  Now 
she  knew  that  in  those  hotels  were  lying  a 
thousand  men  swathed  in  bandages,  poi- 
soned by  pus  and  gangrene,  and  the  sea  was 
holding  up  a  long  chaplet  of  buoys  from 
which  were  hanging  nets  to  ward  off  sub- 
marines. How  could  she  go  back  there  ? 

The  summer  wore  away  in  a  manner  al- 
most satisfactory,  and  with  great  hopes  in 
the  military  operations.  A  wave  of  optimism 
passed  over  the  country.  Rumanian  colors 
were  floated  from  the  town-hall;  the  battle 
of  the  Somme  had  freed  Verdun  and  was  it- 
self beginning  to  slacken.  In  the  beginning 
of  October  the  wounded  in  the  hospital  were 

[  177  1 


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almost  few.  Odette,  with  too  little  to  do,  re- 
duced to  solitude,  began  to  droop.  She 
found  the  conversation  of  Mme.  de  Calouas 
very  fine,  but  it  did  not  touch  her.  Why  not  ? 

She  would  have  her  lay  aside  her  mourn- 
ing— the  two  years  being  now  a  long  month 
over  past.  Other  widows  had  almost  joyfully 
put  off  their  crape  in  the  late  summer  heat. 
Odette  considered  it  a  profanation.  "Time 
was  passing."  No  doubt  it  was.  It  was  long — 
without  measure  long.  But  to  her  Jean  had 
died  yesterday,  nothing  in  her  feelings  had 
been  changed  by  what  she  had  seen.  She 
thought  of  all  those  bodily  wounds  which 
she  had  dressed  with  her  own  hands,  and 
which  had  healed.  The  great  wound  within 
herself  remained  open.  At  times  she  would 
forget  the  war,  the  sorrows  of  which  at  other 
times  would  crush  her,  and  think  only  of  the 
beloved  being  to  whom  she  was  bound  for 
eternity. 

One  afternoon  she  dragged  herself,  on  foot 
and  alone,  along  the  road  to  Saint-Gingolph, 
between  the  brook,  the  fields,  and  the  hill- 
ock that  separates  two  valleys.  The  weather 

1 178] 


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was  fine,  underfoot  were  leaves  of  plane- 
trees,  some  decaying,  others  rolling  along  the 
ground,  driven  by  the  autumn  wind.  She  had 
not  the  courage  to  go  to  the  farm;  the  or- 
chard came  down  to  the  roadside.  She  sat 
down  upon  the  grass  of  the  ditch  and  re- 
flected that  this  was  the  third  autumn  that 
she  had  been  there,  since  the  war !  She  re- 
called to  mind  the  first  one,  when  people 
were  beginning  to  find  the  hostilities  very 
long;  when  every  evening,  passing  by  the 
post-office,  one  hoped  to  read  the  news  of 
some  event  which  would  bring  about  its  sud- 
den end.  She  thought  of  the  little  soldiers 
whom  she  used  to  follow  to  the  cemetery, 
and  of  whom  every  one  insisted  upon  think- 
ing: "He  is  the  last  one  !" 

Before  her,  on  the  crest  of  the  hillock,  like 
a  fantastic  screen  whose  edge  has  been 
clumsily  cut  by  a  child,  a  long  avenue  of 
very  ancient  elms  broke  in  upon  the  view. 
They  bore  scattered  clusters  of  foliage,  still 
golden;  a  dense  cloud  of  crows  rose  up  and 
lighted  with  sinister  croakings  upon  their 
ragged  tops.  These  birds  with  their  lugubri- 

[  179  ] 


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ous  cries  seemed  about  to  give  battle  for  the 
possession  of  a  notable  charnel-house.  And 
suddenly  they  plunged  into  the  branches 
and  disappeared,  and  nothing  remained  of 
them  but  the  wound  inflicted  by  the  rasping 
voices  upon  the  motionless  air.  Then  the 
black  cloud  uprose  again,  as  if  the  avenue  of 
old  elms,  mown  down  at  the  roots  by  shells, 
had  upheaved  itself  before  its  final  downfall. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  heart  of  the  hillock  were 
painfully  throbbing.  The  raucous  croaking 
of  these  thousands  of  birds  grated  upon  her 
nerves  and  aroused  all  her  powers  of  mourn- 
ful revery. 

Odette  resumed  her  walk  back  to  the 
town.  Evening  was  falling.  Lush  meadows 
along  the  brookside,  a  gray  steeple  almost 
hidden  in  foliage  of  rose  ochre,  the  race- 
course— relic  of  a  brilliant  worldliness — two 
or  three  pretty  villas,  whose  reddening  hop- 
vines  were  flaunting  themselves  derisively 
before  closed  windows,  reminded  her  too 
painfully  of  a  past  era — a  lost  paradise. 
Among  the  persons  whom  she  met,  already 
half  hidden  in  the  shadow,  some  were  laugh- 
[  180] 


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ing.  Then  people  could  laugh  ?  Why,  yes ! 
Life,  diverse  as  it  is,  has  ever  its  source  in 
the  waters  of  a  Fountain  of  Youth. 

The  darkness  and  the  croakings  of  the 
crows  haunted  her.  When  she  reached  the 
cottage  she  threw  herself  upon  a  divan,  and 
remained  there,  overcome,  until  Amelia 
came  to  call  her  to  her  solitary  dinner. 

The  evening  mail  brought  her  tidings  of 
the  death  of  the  last  de  Blauve  boy,  who 
had  voluntarily  gone  to  the  firing-line  in  ad- 
vance of  those  of  his  age,  and  had  been 
killed  outright  in  the  very  hour  when  he  first 
set  foot  in  the  trench.  Almost  mechanically, 
and  as  a  daily  duty,  she  read  two  news- 
papers, line  by  line.  She  seemed  to  feel  a 
great  inward  emptiness;  she  felt  herself  go- 
ing to  pieces.  She  must  make  a  change,  at 
whatever  cost.  There  was  just  now  no  neces- 
sity for  her  presence  in  the  hospital.  She  re- 
solved to  return  to  Paris,  without  other  rea- 
son than  the  impossibility  of  remaining  in 
Surville.  How  many  feverish  changes  she 
had  made,  since  the  beginning  of  this  war, 
with  no  more  serious  motive  than  this  ! 
[  181  ] 


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XX 

ARRIVED  in  Paris,  she  went  at  once  to 
see  Mme.  de  Blauve.  This  woman,  who  had 
lost  a  much-loved  husband  and  two  sons 
hardly  old  enough  to  be  soldiers,  was  not 
weeping,  was  not  feeling  dull,  had  no  hard 
words  to  say  about  the  war.  She  gave  full 
evidence  of  tenderness  toward  her  family, 
but,  above  all,  she  knew  how  to  live,  and 
that,  in  a  time  of  war,  means  total  forget- 
fulness  of  self  and  of  all  whom  one  loves. 
She  was  not  sending  her  daughters  into  the 
hospitals,  where  they  were  not  needed;  she 
had  herself  given  up  her  work  as  nurse,  in 
order  to  give  special  attention  to  preparing 
them  for  marriage. 

"Marriage  is  the  civic  duty  of  women," 
she  said;  "at  sixteen  and  a  half  one  can  very 
well  have  a  child.  Marriage  is  a  difficult  mat- 
ter in  a  time  like  this,  but  I  am  willing  to 
pay  the  price!"  She  was  thinking  only  of 
this,  the  oldest  girl  having  passed  her  fif- 
teenth year. 

To  Odette,  Mme.  de  Blauve  was  another 
[  182] 


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Mme.  de  Calouas  in  Paris.  She  felt  at  ease 
with  neither  of  them,  and  yet  both  of  them 
attracted  her  inexplicably.  She  felt  herself 
at  a  distance  from  them  while  yet  being 
influenced  by  them,  to  a  degree  that  sur- 
prised some  indefinable  part  of  herself.  Both 
of  them  shocked  her,  wounded  her,  even; 
she  was  appalled  before  their  stoicism.  She 
looked  at  them  darkly,  almost  malevolently, 
when  they  seemed  to  gaze  with  reprobation 
upon  the  mourning  garments  which  she  per- 
sisted in  wearing.  These  women,  brought  up 
to  worship  the  dead,  uprose  like  spectres 
from  the  depths  of  the  past  which  was  their 
element,  and  uttered  a  word  unfamiliar  to 
their  lips:  "Forward  !"  The  impression  was 
most  disturbing. 

Not  that  she  envied  them,  under  the  pre- 
text that  both  appeared  to  have  adjusted 
themselves  to  the  sorrows  of  the  time. 
Odette  had  no  desire  thus  to  adjust  herself. 
On  the  contrary,  she  implored  to  be  left 
alone,  to  bury  herself  in  unending  grief.  And 
yet  she  felt  a  secret  sympathy  with  these  un- 
avowed  foes  of  the  perpetuation  of  her  love. 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


XXI 

(CROSSING  the  Champs-Elysees  on  her 
homeward  way,  Odette  met  two  groups 
of  blinded  soldiers,  each  one  led  by  a  woman 
who  helped  him  to  pass  from  refuge  to  ref- 
uge. A  blinded  soldier  invariably  caused 
Odette  to  shudder  with  dismay.  Of  all  the 
wounded  by  the  war,  such  as  he  most  pain- 
fully touched  her  sympathies.  She  stood  on 
the  first  refuge  as  if  petrified,  gazing  at  these 
men  led  by  the  hand  by  young  women,  a 
third  clinging  to  his  comrade's  coat,  grop- 
ing in  the  air  with  a  timid  arm. 

In  the  face  of  distress  like  this,  coachmen 
and  chauffeurs,  however  much  in  haste, 
stopped  short  as  before  a  funeral  procession, 
which  all  Paris  respects.  The  double  stream 
of  circulation  was  arrested  in  both  directions 
recalling  pictures  of  the  waters  of  the  Red 
Sea.  The  crowded  foot-passengers  formed  a 
rampart  with  their  bodies.  No  one  saluted, 
for  that  is  not  the  custom,  but  the  serious- 
ness of  all  faces  spoke  of  the  impulse,  almost 
[  184] 


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the  need,  thus  to  act.  Veneration,  such  as 
has  never  before  been  seen  on  French  faces, 
was  stamped  upon  the  features  of  men  and 
women,  even  of  children.  That  which  was 
taking  place  was  almost  nothing,  simply  a 
group  of  soldiers  whose  organs  of  sight  had 
been  destroyed,  with  charitable  women 
serving  them  as  guides.  For  two  minutes 
they  interrupted  the  movement  of  the 
Champs-Elysees.  Yet  it  was  a  moral  influ- 
ence, an  unrecognized,  unclassified  power, 
poor  and  even  lamentable  of  aspect,  which 
had  suddenly  arrested  the  prosperous  physi- 
cal movement  of  a  great  city.  Odette  felt 
her  heart  throb;  her  eyes  were  so  blurred 
that  as  she  reached  the  sidewalk  she  almost 
failed  to  recognize  her  friend  La  Villaumer, 
who  was  standing  there,  gazing  at  that 
simple,  pathetic  transit. 
After  the  first  greeting  he  said  to  Odette: 
"I  have  often  imagined  Jesus  returning 
among  us;  I  thought  just  now  that  I  saw 
him  at  the  head  of  that  group,  motioning 
with  his  gentle  hand  to  the  crowd  of  busy 
mortals,  *  Pause,  travellers!'  He  had  come 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


back  as  the  God  of  justice  and  of  love,  just 
when  the  demon  was  making  his  most  de- 
termined attack  upon  his  beloved,  just  when 
each  one  of  us  is  obliged  to  look  into  the  in- 
most recesses  of  his  heart  and  ask  himself: 
'What  is  going  to  be  left?'  And  he  was  re- 
plying to  us,  'Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  hence- 
forth cherish,  all  of  you,  a  concern  for 
human  distress/  I  thought,  too,  that  I  heard 
him  whisper — pardon  the  blasphemy  if  it 
shocks  you ! — I  heard  him  whisper  softly: 
'My  sufferings  have  been  surpassed;  the 
sufferings  of  my  martyrs  have  been  sur- 
passed." 

"Oh!" 

"Yes,  they  and  he,  while  suffering,  had 
the  assurance  of  entering  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  and  that  within  a  relatively  short  time. 
The  majority  of  these  poor  fellows  are  with- 
out that  assurance;  many  of  them  are  with- 
out hope,  and  their  martyrdom  has  already 
lasted  for  twenty-eight  months !  They  are 
about  to  endure  a  third  winter,  and  some  of 
them  will  last  for  a  fourth  !  And  who  knows  ? 
From  all  this  will  be  born  into  the  world,  my 
[  186] 


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friend,  a  'religion  of  mankind/  It  is  not  sim- 
ply the  human  blood  shed,  it  is  the  indefi- 
nitely prolonged  torture  of  men,  millions 
and  millions  of  men,  which  will  create  a  new 
mystic  element  upon  which  the  religions  of 
the  future  will  draw.  It  is  a  dangerous  vision; 
the  salvation  of  humanity  lies  at  the  present 
time  in  nothing  that  in  the  least  resembles 
humanitarianism. 

"But  I  have  something  to  tell  you,  my 
friend;  Misson,  the  husband  of  our  good 
Rose,  whom  we  have  so  often  ridiculed  be- 
cause he  stuck  to  his  automobile —  Well, 
he  has  been  killed,  the  good  fellow,  blown  to 
pieces  by  the  bursting  of  a  shell,  as  he  was 
driving  some  officers " 

"Oh,  my  dear  Rose!  I  must  hasten  to 
her!" 

"Do  not  go  yet.  It  happened  on  the  road 
to  Rheims.  She  has  obtained  leave  to  go  for 
his  body —  Do  you  know  what  Mme.  Le- 
conque  said,  when  she  learned  that  Misson's 
body  had  been  blown  to  fragments  by  a 
bursting  shell?  She  said:  'In  his  auto? — 
What  a  stupid  death !'  The  death  that  one 

[  187] 


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receives  in  an  automobile,  you  see,  is  not 
noble.  It  was,  we  now  learn ,  the  one-hun- 
dred-and-fourth  time  that  a  shell  has  fallen 
within  less  than  thirty  metres  of  his  ma- 
chine, and  the  ninth  machine  that  has  been 
struck  in  the  course  of  his  journeys.  He 
will  forever  be  unrecognized." 

Odette  could  not  refrain  from  wiping  her 
eyes. 

La  Villaumer,  who  lost  nothing  of  her 
actions,  said  to  her: 

"You  are  weeping  for  another  sorrow 
than  your  own?" 

"Is  that  what  you  think  ?"  asked  Odette; 
"it  is  still  my  sorrow;  it  is  he  who  makes  me 
more  alive  to  the  sorrows  of  others." 

"Yes,  but  from  the  moment  when  you  can 
thus  weep  for  others  your  own  grief  be- 
comes more  tolerable." 

"I  would  not  wish  to  suffer  less." 

"You  are  not  suffering  less;  there  is  room 
in  your  heart  for  a  still  greater  sorrow." 

"You  always  make  me  afraid  when  you 
say  that." 

"Odette,  you  must  not  be  afraid  of  any- 
thing." 

[  188  ] 


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As  they  went  up  the  avenue  La  Villaumer 
went  on : 

"I  remember,  last  spring,  regretting  in 
your  presence  the  marvellous  aspect  of  the 
Champs-EIysees  in  the  days  of  prosperity. 
And  yet  not  one  of  those  beautiful  old  days 
ever  aroused  in  me  so  much  feeling  as  the 
crossing  over  of  those  ten  war-blinded  sol- 
diers. I  do  not  cease  to  regret  the  time  when 
these  poor  young  fellows  enjoyed  the  light; 
but  I  am  asking  myself  by  what  mystery  the 
greatest  suffering  uplifts  us  above  the  great- 
est pleasure.  I  even  believe  that  the  stimu- 
lus of  the  greatest  pleasure  is  short-lived  and 
degenerates  rapidly,  while  the  other  lasts 
long  and  is  endlessly  purified." 

"You  are  being  converted,  La  Villau- 
mer!" 

"You  know  that  there  is  no  more  con- 
vinced sceptic  than  I,  and  you  know  my  pre- 
dilection for  the  simple  life,  frank,  whole- 
some, normally  developing;  one  may  say, 
happy  in  the  pagan  manner.  But  this  mode 
of  life  does  not  exhaust  life,  though  I  be- 
lieve it  to  conform  most  perfectly  to  the  des- 
tiny of  man.  Life  has  acquired  other  dis- 
[  189  ] 


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positions,  other  tendencies.  And  this  does 
not  prevent  asceticism,  for  instance,  attrac- 
tive as  it  is,  from  having  at  its  base  an  incon- 
testable psychological  truth.  In  the  present 
state  of  civilization  we  are  not  permitted  to 
allow  inconsistencies  of  which  nevertheless 
the  world  is  composed.  If  you  so  much  as 
mention  two  contradictory  propositions  you 
are  accused  of  instability,  if  not  of  dis- 
honesty. Each  of  us  remains  shut  up  in  his 
little,  partial,  incomplete  truth;  that  is  why 
the  human  race  seems  to  one  inconsequen- 
tial and  sometimes  stupid." 

"Come,  explain  yourself  a  little;  how,  for 
example,  can  one  at  the  same  time  love 
pleasure  and  that  which  forbids  it  ?" 

"The  problem  does  appear  to  be  insolu- 
ble; but  observe  that  there  are  none  like  the 
greatly  self-indulgent  to  recognize  the  im- 
portance of  an  event  which  consists  in  re- 
nouncing all  pleasure.  It  is  those  who  most 
intensely  enjoy  the  exquisite  things  of  life 
who  are  thrilled  to  their  inmost  souls  at  the 
sight  of  a  voluntary  death.  I  have  been 
present,  as  a  relative,  or  as  a  mere  onlooker, 

[  190  ] 


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at  more  than  one  taking  of  the  veil.  Think 
what  the  taking  of  the  veil  must  be  to  a 
beautiful  young  girl !  Well,  fathers  excepted, 
I  have  never  seen  tears  in  the  eyes  of  men 
professing  the  same  faith  as  the  novice,  but 
I  have  seen  robust  artists  almost  faint  at 
the  sight.  They  were  wholly  indifferent  to 
the  person  who  was  thus  leaving  the  world, 
but  they  adored  beauty  and  love.  They  be- 
lieved in  nothing  else  than  beauty  and  love, 
and  they  were  the  only  ones  in  the  company 
to  be  overwhelmed  by  the  power  of  the 
motive  that  can  tear  a  human  being  away 
from  the  attraction  of  such  a  magnet.  These 
unbelievers,  these  intruders  in  the  temple, 
experienced  such  a  shock  that  they  came 
nearer  to  fervent  adherence  to  a  God  to 
them  unknown  than  the  men  of  tranquil 
faith,  who  looked  upon  the  ceremony  as 
something  usual  and  in  conformity  with  the 
order  of  things.  Ardent  converts  are  not  re- 
cruited from  among  the  friends  of  religion, 
but  from  among  its  declared  enemies  or 
those  totally  ignorant  of  it." 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


O 


XXII 


'DETTE  must  leave  a  card  with  a  word 
of  sympathy  at  the  door  of  the  bereaved 
Rose,  and  see  her,  stand  by  her,  try,  however 
vainly,  to  console  her. 

Fortunately  Simone  overpowered  both 
Rose  and  Odette  with  her  chatter.  She  was 
as  well-informed,  as  in  the  time  of  peace,  of 
everything  that  went  on  in  private  life. 
Mathilde  Aviron — another  Germaine  Le 
Gault — was  in  love  with  a  deputy. 

"But,"  said  Odette,  "she  lost  her  hus- 
band only  four  weeks  after  me." 

"That  is  two  years  and  two  months  ago, 
my  dear!" 

"That  is  true." 

"It  all  depends  on  circumstances.  They 
are  going  to  be  married,  it  appears. —  And 
that  poor  Ogivier  is  slowly  wasting  away,  in 
solitary  misery,  because  his  wife  believes 
herself  called  to  be  heroic  in  the  hospitals ! 
Opinions  differ;  some  say:  'She  is  doing 
right.  What  would  you  have  ?  Ogivier  is 

fifty-five  years  old;  he  is  useless " 

[  192  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"  But  after  all,  he  is  her  husband.  Are  her 
services  indispensable  in  the  hospitals  ?" 

"No  one  is  indispensable,  every  one  says." 

"Well,  then?" 

"Well,  then,  it  is  war.  Some  forget  their 
duties,  others  don't  know  where  they  are. 
Mme.  de  Gaspari  is  absolutely  bent  upon 
making  shells.  She  used  to  shed  perfume  at 
fifteen  paces;  she  had  her  hair  waved  by  X., 
and  the  beautiful  hands  that  you  remem- 
ber—  Some  one  has  given  her  a  chance  in  a 
factory !  And  how  many  things  are  happen- 
ing that  no  one  talks  about !  There  are  hus- 
bands who  were  in  love  with  their  wives,  and 
who  after  the  wives  have  been  doing  service 
in  the  hospitals,  no  longer  feel  the  same 
toward  them.  It  is  not  their  fault !  I  know 
some  who  did  not  in  the  least  object  to  it; 
but  love  is  what  it  can  be;  many  love  in  their 
wives  only  an  illusion  pleasing  to  them- 
selves, such,  for  example,  as  that  a  wife 
should  come  physically  near  only  to  her  hus- 
band. When  their  wives  come  back  after 
having  spent  whole  days — perhaps  nights — 
in  those  hospital  rooms — what  would  you 
[  193  1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


hear  ?  Every  one  cannot  get  over  a  painful 
impression  simply  by  the  aid  of  reason/' 

"And  what  about  the  girls  who  do  the 
same?" 

"Yes,  it  is  evident  that  men  will  have  to 
accept  new  ideas." 

"Say,  that  unlucky  Gendron  has  had  an 
attack." 

"What,  at  his  age?" 

"Yes,  he  is  still  young;  and  he  was  so 
healthy !  He  was  by  no  means  a  useless  man. 
Here  he  is  cut  down;  he  cannot  endure  the 
idea  of  the  war.  War  perhaps  seems  worse  to 
him  at  a  distance  than  if  he  were  in  the 
trenches.  'My  head  is  splitting;  it  seems  as  if 
a  petard  had  been  fired  into  my  ear.  I  would 
rather  explode  than  watch  for  it. ' ' 

"He  is  a  singular  man." 

"He  didn't  'explode'  as  he  said.  He  is 
'watching  for  it'  with  his  mouth  drawn  to 
one  side  and  an  arm  and  a  leg  paralyzed — 
his  intellect  intact.  People's  lots  are  differ- 
ent. We  see  all  sorts." 

"There  are  unfortunate  people;  here  and 
there  are  some  who,  whether  they  will  or  no, 

[  194  1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


find  the  war  turning  to  their  advantage; 
and  then  there  are  many  who  really  do  not 
know  what  they  are  going  through;  they  are 
as  if  possessed." 

"What  do  you  think  of  La  Villaumer?" 
asked  Simone. 

"I  hope  that  you  don't  propose  to  have 
him  exorcised,"  said  Odette. 

"No,  but  has  he  told  you  that  he  is  try- 
ing to  sell  all  his  property,  his  collections, 
his  books  ?  He  wants  to  realize  on  all  that  he 
owns,  and  give  it  for  the  war." 

"He  is  very  much  touched  by  it." 

"  But,  my  dear  friends,  who  is  there  who 
is  not?" 

"Mme.  de  Boulainvilliers  has  distributed 
her  entire  fortune  among  war  works;  she  has 
mortgaged  her  house  to  enable  her  to  sup- 
port an  auxiliary  hospital  which  she  has 
opened  in  it;  she  is  already  begging  right  and 
left.  She  will  come  to  be  a  charge  upon  the 
public  charities.  All  her  sons  have  been 
killed;  but  her  relatives  are  furious." 

"Little  do  I  care  about  relatives,"  said 
Odette;  "she  is  doing  a  good  thing,  and  all 

[  195  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


the  more  because  every  one  knows  that  she 
isn't  in  the  least  pretentious.  'There  is  no 
great  merit  in  what  I  am  doing/  the  old  lady 
says  modestly.  'Why,  I  shall  soon  be  seventy 
years  old;  if  I  do  not  take  care  of  my 
wounded  the  state  will  have  to  do  it,  and 
that  would  impair  the  fortune  of  my  rela- 
tives as  well  as  of  everybody  else.'  But  she 
does  not  say  everything  that  she  thinks. 
What  she  thinks  is  much  simpler  than  that; 
she  enjoys,  above  all  things,  making  little 
creams  for  her  soldiers.  'But  for  my  hos- 
pital,' she  says,  'they  wouldn't  get  any !" 

"Have  you  heard  of  Clotilde's  adven- 
ture?" asked  Simone. 

"My  goodness!  has  Clotilde  too  been 
touched  by  the  war  ?" 

"Oh,  in  the  most  unexpected  way.  You 
know  that  she  vowed  to  keep  the  war  away 
from  her.  Her  husband  is  at  General  Head- 
quarters; when  she  sees  him  she  forbids  him 
to  speak  about  the  war.  But  Avvogade  had 
a  friend  of  his  childhood,  a  school  comrade— 
a  man  whom  one  never  met  at  their  house 
in  the  old  days — a  modest  employee  in  a 

1 196] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Trust  Company,  but  a  tall,  well-made  fel- 
low. The  poor  fellow  lost  his  sight  as  the  re- 
sult of  trepanning.  His  condition  produced  a 
great  effect  upon  Awogade ;  Avvogade  sud- 
denly felt  all  the  old  friendship  for  his  com- 
rade revive;  he  goes  to  him  as  often  as  he 
can,  takes  him  out  to  walk,  brings  him  home 
to  lunch.  Clotilde  dares  not  object,  but  she 
is  simply  aghast.  The  mutilated  man's  con- 
versation does  not  interest  her  and  the 
sight  of  him  horrifies  her.  'We  don't  talk 
about  the  war/  says  her  husband.  'I  am  not 
breaking  our  agreement/  They  don't  talk 
about  the  war,  but  this  man  with  his  closed 
eyes  embodies  the  war  to  her,  and  thus  the 
war  has  entered  her  house.  And  no  one  has 
anything  to  say  to  her  but:  'You  can't 
escape  it,  my  dear.'  If  Clotilde  was  not  such 
a  dear  every  one  would  laugh,  for,  after  all, 
her  trouble  is  not  a  great  one  and  there  is 
something  absurd  in  the  adventure." 


[  197  1 


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XXIII 

.S  she  went  about  among  her  friends 
Odette  perceived  that  she  was  regarded  in 
Paris  as  one  of  the  women  who  during  the 
war  was  sacrificing  herself  for  the  public 
good.  One  must  have  a  "war"  reputation  at 
all  costs.  No  one  said  a  word  as  to  her  con- 
duct as  a  widow,  or  as  to  her  moral  ideas. 
But  because  she  had  been  absent  and  was 
known  to  have  been  for  a  long  time  a  hos- 
pital nurse,  every  one  ascribed  to  her  that 
spirit  of  self-abnegation  which  gives  reason 
to  expect  all  things  from  certain  exceptional 
persons,  born  for  sublimities.  The  compli- 
ments that  she  received  were  not  ironical. 
Her  profound  and  unalterable  grief  for  her 
husband's  death,  the  very  discretion  which 
she  observed  in  making  no  lamentation  be- 
fore her  friends,  were  not  lost  upon  them. 
Odette,  sad  and  silent,  enjoyed  what  might 
be  called  "a  good  press."  The  praises  be- 
stowed upon  her  simply  transformed  into 
extraordinary  virtue  what  was  only  natural 
[  198] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


to  her.  At  first  she  found  it  stupid;  then  it 
disturbed  her. 

"But  what  am  I,  after  all?"  she  would 
ask. 

"  You  are  an  exquisite  woman  !  Your  con- 
duct is  admirable !" 

And  every  one  present  would  acquiesce. 
It  was  in  a  drawing-room  which  might  have 
been  supposed  to  be  the  seat  of  the  War 
Committee,  where  were  young  women, 
women  on  the  further  verge  of  youth,  poet- 
esses, princesses;  through  which  passed 
generals,  convalescent  heroes,  ministers, 
men  of  all  shades  of  politics,  literary  ce- 
lebrities, and  the  sad  relics  of  before-the- 
war  aestheticism.  The  secrets  of  military 
operations  were  known  there,  whether 
carried  out  or  simply  planned,  the  under- 
side of  diplomacy,  future  declarations  of 
war,  historic  nights,  scandals  unknown  to 
the  public.  News  was  handed  about,  dis- 
credited, misconstrued,  torn  to  pieces.  An 
apparition  from  another  world,  like  Odette, 
felt  herself  facing  all  Europe  in  arms,  or 
some  world-congress;  rising  from  the  mod- 

[  199  ] 


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est  tomb  in  which  she  had  been  living  she 
was  dazzled,  her  head  was  turned  with  it 
all.  She  rose  to  return  to  her  solitude. 

On  the  staircase  she  met  La  Villaumer, 
his  smile  scornful  at  the  thought  of  the  fool- 
ishness which  he  was  about  to  hear. 

"What  do  they  expect  of  me  ?"  she  asked. 
"Imagine,  there  are  those  up-stairs  who  were 
ready  to  swear  that  I,  all  by  myself,  directed 
the  battle  of  the  Somme !" 

"Not  at  all,"  he  replied.  "It  is  simply  that 
you  are  a  very  worthy  woman;  you  honor 
the  house." 

"All  very  well !  But  they  frighten  me. 
They  seem  to  be  expecting  something  of 
me " 

"That  you  will  do  the  house  still  greater 
honor !  Receptions  of  this  sort  would  fain 
be  taken  as  pictures  of  the  country,  in  the 
small." 

"Tell  me  about  yourself,  La  Villaumer; 
how  much  truth  is  there  in  what  they  tell 
me — that  you  are  going  to  distribute  all 
your  property  and  live  in  a  garret  ?" 

"Oh,  it  is  a  naturally  erroneous  para- 
[  200  ] 


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phrase  of  an  expression  of  which,  like  you, 
like  many  others,  I  have  often  made  use.  I 
have  said:  'I  no  longer  count.  None  of  us 
any  longer  counts.'  Which  means:  ' What- 
ever our  value  may  formerly  have  been, 
the  common  cause  is  too  grand  for  us  to  in- 
dulge in  the  fatuity  of  putting  a  value  upon 
ourselves.  Whoever  we  may  be,  we  are 
reduced  to  nothingness  by  something  su- 
perior to  ourselves/  It  is  a  rather  stern  as- 
sertion, and  just  because  it  is  so  it  sets 
imaginations  to  work.  Our  amiable  gossips 
immediately  translate  it  into  a  child's  pic- 
ture, impressive  by  its  crude  coloring,  in 
which  they  see  me  shivering  on  a  pallet." 

"And  the  story  of  Mme.  de  Boulain- 
villiers  ?" 

"  So  they  have  told  you  the  story  of  Mme. 
de  Boulainvilliers  as  well  ?  She  is  a  truly 
generous  woman,  but  not  an  imprudent  one. 
She  so  well  knows  what  a  snare  there  is  for 
her  in  the  pleasure  of  coddling  her  hundred 
and  twenty  soldiers,  that,  having  no  direct 
heirs,  she  has  put  a  part  of  her  property  into 
an  annuity,  in  order  to  become  a  charge 
[  201  ] 


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upon  no  one  as  long  as  she  may  live.  All  the 
rest  she  gives  away.  She  detests  her  relations 
and  delights  in  frustrating  them.  No  one 
would  talk  about  her,  perhaps,  if  it  were  not 
for  the  cream  of  the  end  of  the  story,  a  little 
detail  which  happens  to  be  true,  and  which 
does  good." 

"Let  us  have  done  with  our  good  women 
and  our  special  cases.  But  you,  yourself, 
what  do  you  think,  on  the  whole,  of  sacri- 
fice?" 

"The  general  opinion  is  that  men  are 
without  exception  ruled  by  base  personal 
interests;  but  this  view  only  takes  into  con- 
sideration the  calm  level  of  the  human 
ocean;  in  reality  it  has  its  tempests,  which 
are  the  passions,  and  man  in  a  state  of  pas- 
sion no  longer  thinks  of  his  interests.  In  the 
depths  of  my  soul  I  believe  that  sacrifice 
may  very  well  cause  the  greatest  happiness." 


[  202  ] 


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XXIV 

OOME  little  time  later  Odette  went  to  see 
Clotilde.  It  was  early  in  a  mortally  cold 
winter;  for  two  months  already  cold  weather 
had  raged,  bitter  and  uninterrupted.  The 
question  of  fuel  was  beginning  to  be  se- 
rious; there  were  rumors  of  restrictions  in 
many  things.  Paris  was  uneasy,  though  the 
newspapers,  with  their  miracle-working  ink, 
turned  adversity  into  beauty. 

Odette  found  Clotilde  in  her  usual  at- 
mosphere, a  happy  accident  having  per- 
mitted her  apartment  to  be  warmed.  She 
was  surrounded  by  books  and  flowers,  and 
wore  a  robe  of  some  silken  fabric  which 
moulded  itself  to  her  sinuous  form.  She  at 
once  exclaimed: 

"Do  you  notice  anything  changed  here  ?" 

"Not  you,  certainly !" 

"I  have  had  the  rooms  done  over;  how 
do  you  like  this  gray  ?" 

"It's  lovely !  With  the  cherry  color  of  the 
curtains  it  is  really  perfect." 
[  203  ] 


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"  Ah  !  I  was  sure  that  you  would  think  so  ! 
The  others  go  through  the  rooms  as  if  they 
were  daft;  they  don't  notice  anything." 

"You  have  a  new  photograph  of  your  hus- 
band. It  is  wonderfully  good." 

"  Doesn't  he  grow  handsome  ?  And  yet  the 
dear  fellow  is  overworking.  It  isn't  a  sine- 
cure, I  assure  you,  his  position  at  General 
Headquarters !  But  I  feel  sure  that  I  amuse 
him;  I  divert  him  from  his  worries.  Without 
flattering  myself  I  please  him,  these  days. 
And  I  love  him,  Oh,  how  I  love  him !" 

"You  are  two  lucky  people." 

"Forgive  me,  dear  Odette,  I  am  almost 
ashamed  to  dwell  upon  my  happiness  before 
you.  But  you  are  the  only  person  who  under- 
stands; you,  who  have  truly  loved." 

"Who  love  still,  Clotilde." 

Clotilde  opened  her  eyes  wide,  thinking 
that  she  had  not  heard  aright.  She  knew 
what  love  was,  surely,  but  it  was  difficult  for 
her  to  admit  that  after  two  years  and  a  half 
one  could  love  a  dead  man,  as  she  loved  her 
strong  and  handsome  husband.  Yet  she  cer- 
tainly could  entertain  no  suspicion  concern- 
[  204  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


ing  Odette,  and  she  at  once  resolved  to  make 
the  most  of  her  friend's  enduring  sentiments 
to  talk  to  her  about  her  own  personal  love. 
She  overwhelmed  her  with  it  as  with  a  flood. 
Her  love  had  reached  an  intensity  which  it 
had  never  known  in  times  of  peace.  The  se- 
clusion which  she  had  chosen  in  order  to 
avoid  hearing  any  talk  of  war  had  built 
around  her  an  ivory  tower;  and  no  longer 
meeting  any  one  but  her  husband,  her  plea- 
sures ministered  to  only  by  him,  she  had 
found  him  taking  a  place  of  unusual  im- 
portance in  her  life;  in  himself  he  embodied 
all  the  delights  of  which  the  war  had  de- 
prived her,  and  which  she  had  learned  to 
forget. 

Odette  herself  began  to  speak  of  love.  The 
subject  was  painful  to  her,  and  yet  she  en- 
joyed it.  Clotilde  was  the  only  creature  with 
whom,  since  the  war,  she  had  been  able  to 
converse  on  the  subject  without  diffidence. 
Letting  herself  go  along  the  lines  of  her 
memories  and  her  habitual  reveries,  she  be- 
gan to  taste  the  joy  of  a  prisoner  shut  up  in 
a  dark  cell,  who  finds  an  opportunity  to 
[  205  ] 


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mention  the  brook  that  flows  through  the 
sun-bathed  field  below  his  father's  house. 

"After  all,"  she  concluded,  "the  things 
that  we  have  been  saying,  if  they  could  be 
noted  down,  would  interest  the  world  more, 
fifty  or  a  hundred  years  hence,  than  all  the 
terrible  events  that  are  taking  place." 

Clotilde  would  hear  nothing  about  "terri- 
ble events."  Love  alone  was  worth  consider- 
ing. 

"We  meet  love  everywhere,"  said  Odette. 
"  I  find  it  springing  up  under  my  feet  wher- 
ever I  go;  in  the  operating-room,  at  the  bed- 
side of  the  wounded  and  the  dying.  The 
towns  nearest  to  the  front  are  fuller  of  it 
than  any  others,  it  would  seem.  They  say 
that  it  has  never  caused  such  a  stir." 

"It  represents  life,  which  must  be  per- 
petuated, whatever  happens.  In  your  case, 
my  dear  Odette,  love  is  joined  to  death,  but 
in  general,  no;  it  severs  itself  from  death. 
Those  of  our  day  who  sing  of  love  and  prac- 
tise it  are  more  surely  serving  the  future 
than  those  who  conceive  of  restraint  as  the 
sole  virtue." 

[  206  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


In  spite  of  herself,  these  unpremeditated 
words  brought  a  sudden  light  into  the  per- 
plexed thoughts  with  which  Odette's  per- 
sistent sorrow  and  her  natural  disposition  as 
a  loving  young  woman  inspired  Clotilde.  She 
felt  impelled  to  cry  out  to  her:  "You  think 
you  are  loving  a  dead  man,  my  poor  dear ! 
but  you  are  not  twenty-eight  years  old;  you 
are  in  love  with  love;  it  is  always  here,  and  is 
waiting  for  you !" 

Both  of  them  were  equally  incapable  of 
disguising  the  truth  as  it  appeared  to  them. 
Odette,  bound  by  a  tie  whose  almost  incon- 
ceivable strength  kept  down  every  other 
sort  of  desire;  Clotilde  simply  deep  in  love  to 
the  point  of  hardly  being  able  to  imagine  a 
case  different  from  her  own.  By  chance  she 
had  not  uttered  words  which  deeply  wound 
a  bleeding  heart,  but  Odette's  acute  senses 
at  once  perceived  that  there  is  hardly  any 
conversation  possible  even  upon  the  dearest 
subject  that  they  may  have  in  common,  be- 
tween two  creatures,  one  of  whom  is  happy 
and  the  other  in  sorrow. 

She  at  least  observed  this:  that  Clotilde, 
[  207  ] 


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from  an  absolutely  opposite  point  of  view, 
was  at  one  with  Mme.  de  Blauve,  with  Mme. 
de  Calouas,  with  La  Villaumer,  with  each 
and  every  one,  in  saying  to  her:  "My  dear 
friend,  you  should  not  always  mourn." 

And  her  grief,  so  genuine,  was  increased 
tenfold. 

But  Clotilde,  self-indulgent,  egotistic,  and 
thinking  only  of  her  own  pleasure  or  of  spar- 
ing herself  pain,  was  saying  to  Odette: 

"  See  here,  my  dear;  will  you  do  me  a  great 
service  ?  Will  you  come  to  lunch  with  us  to- 
morrow ?  Would  that  bore  you  ?" 

"Why  should  it  bore  me  ?  Why  do  you  call 
it  doing  you  a  service  ?" 

"It  is  settled,  then.  See  here;  I  must  tell 
you  a  secret.  You  know  how  I  love  my  hus- 
band, how  happy  I  am.  There  is  only  one 
dark  spot:  my  husband  has  a  friend,  a 
blinded  officer — Captain  Dessaud.  He  brings 
him  two  or  three  times  a  week  to  lunch,  on 
the  pretext  that  he  is  lonely,  with  no  family, 
and  desperate.  Of  course  I  cannot  object, 
you  understand;  but  the  sight  of  that  man  is 
painful  to  me  to  a  degree  that  you  would 
[208  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


never  believe.  I  have  to  talk  to  him,  and  I 
have  nothing  to  say  to  a  fellow  who  has  lost 
his  sight,  who  hopes  for  nothing,  who  has  no 
motive  for  being  happy.  I  am  sick  with  it. 
Come  to  my  help — you  are  used  to  wretch- 
edness, you  know!" 

"Yes  indeed,  yes  indeed,  I  will  come." 


XXV 

'NCE  at  home,  Odette  thought  more 
about  Clotilde's  conversation  than  about 
the  coming  meeting  with  the  blinded  man, 
which  she  dreaded.  On  the  other  side  of  the 
thin  partition  of  her  little  drawing-room, 
her  neighbor,  the  musician,  who  was  some- 
times reinforced  by  a  'cellist,  was  filling  all 
space  with  enamoured,  passionate,  and  agi- 
tating sounds,  enough  to  rend  the  heart. 
Love,  love,  everywhere  and  always  love  !  For 
the  first  time  in  her  life  Odette,  who  adored 
love,  who  but  now  had  been  delighting  in 
talking  freely  of  love,  who  even  admitted 
the  justice  of  some  of  Clotilde's  assertions 
[  209  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


on  the  superlatively  beneficent  office  of  love, 
Odette  felt  that  in  thinking  of  love  and  talk- 
ing of  love  with  her  friend  she  had  lost  tone, 
and  now  she  had  only  one  thought,  heard 
only  the  one  voice  from  beyond  the  tomb. 
"When  I  am  talking  with  my  friend/'  she 
said  to  herself,  "I  seem  to  be  taking  part  in 
what  is  said,  or  is  laughed  at;  yes,  but  I  take 
part  in  it  like  the  dead  to  whom  it  is  given 
to  perceive  earthly  things  once  more.  The 
war,  when  it  robbed  me  of  my  Jean,  crushed 
the  vitality  of  my  body.  My  heart  has  be- 
come forever  insensible.  I  am  carried  along 
in  the  whirlwind  of  present  events  like  the 
threshed  straw  which  might  float  above  the 
standing  harvest,  thinking  to  recognize  in  it 
stalks  like  itself,  without  realizing  that  the 
iron  has  cut  it  off,  separated  it  forever  from 
the  earth." 

The  moaning  of  the  violoncello,  the  influ- 
ence of  the  music,  gave  a  sort  of  lyric  in- 
clination to  her  usually  modest  thought  and 
contributed  to  increase  her  agitation. 

"The  times  are  so  hard,"  she  continued, 
"that  I  have  not  had,  for  two  years,  the 
t  210  ] 


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slight  consolation  of  talking  with  any  one  of 
my  love-sorrow.  I  could  hope  to  do  so  with 
one  alone,  because  her  love  is,  so  to  speak, 
apart  from  the  war.  But  when  she  speaks  to 
me  of  love  I  perceive  that  her  idea  of  love  is 
not  mine,  or  is  no  longer  mine.  The  love  that 
I  bear  within  me  is  no  longer  accessible  to 
any  human  creature !" 

The  musician  in  the  next  room  took  up,  as 
usual,  her  favorite  Nocturne,  accompanying 
it  with  her  voice,  wordlessly,  until  the  grand, 
inspired  utterance  of  desolation,  thrice  re- 
peated, enwrapped  the  hearer  like  the  long 
dark  locks  of  night  itself. 

Then  Odette,  solitary  amidst  the  pictures 
of  her  well-beloved,  fell  into  a  long  fit  of 
weeping,  as  she  had  so  often  done  before. 

XXVI 

OHE  found  Clotilde  alone  next  day  at  the 
lunch-hour,  her  husband  being  almost  al- 
ways late,  especially  when  he  had  to  go  to 
fetch  the  blinded  man.  At  last  she  recog- 
nized the  voice  of  the  handsome  George  in 

[211   ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


the  anteroom,  and  saw  him  pushing  be- 
fore him,  as  a  ventriloquist  guides  his 
automaton,  a  tall  young  man,  neither  hand- 
some nor  plain,  in  the  uniform  of  a  captain 
of  light  infantry,  and  with  closed  eyes.  The 
blinded  man  bowed,  and  clasped  the  hand 
that  Clotilde  laid  within  his  own;  George  ex- 
plained to  him  that  one  of  their  friends  was 
with  them,  a  young  war-widow,  Mme.  Jac- 
quelin.  The  blind  man  also  pressed  the 
hand  that  Odette  extended  to  him. 

He  already  knew  the  apartment  with  mi- 
nute exactness.  He  walked  to  the  table  with- 
out aid,  almost  without  feeling  his  way;  and 
recognized  each  flower  by  its  perfume;  they 
directed  his  fingers  to  the  primroses  which 
have  no  perfume,  and  one  would  have  said 
that  his  eager  fingers  recognized  the  table 
decorations  as  strange  little  mute  person- 
ages. After  a  brief  touch  he  knew  the  precise 
situation  of  each  object;  with  the  blade  of 
his  knife  he  recognized  the  nature  of  the 
food  on  his  plate,  and  cut  it  adroitly.  Possi- 
bly he  might  have  been  able  to  help  himself, 
like  others,  from  the  dish  presented  by  the 
[  212  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


servant,  but  he  was  spared  the  necessity  of 
this  feat  by  the  question:  "What  do  you 
prefer,  captain  ?" 

He  talked  freely,  almost  gayly,  though 
with  an  evident  effort.  He  appeared  to  be 
intelligent  without  ever  having  been  cul- 
tivated; but  neither  his  person  nor  his  mind 
revealed  anything  remarkable.  He  would 
doubtless  have  been  a  man  like  any  other  if 
he  had  not  been  blinded. 

Odette  shuddered  on  looking  at  those 
closed  eyelids  on  the  face  of  a  man  in  whom 
one  divined,  notwithstanding  his  effort  to 
conceal  it,  a  secret  suffering.  Yet  his  voice 
was  not  that  of  a  man  who  bore  a  mystery 
about  with  him;  his  suffering  probably  did 
not  attain  to  those  higher  regions  which  a 
rich  imagination  transforms  into  torture- 
chambers  for  men  unhappily  deprived  of  the 
light  of  day;  he  did  not  dream  of  romantic 
sunsets,  of  the  contemplation  of  the  celestial 
vault,  or  of  Correggio's  sunlight,  nor  even  of 
the  beauty  of  houris. 

As  George  was  offering  to  his  touch  the 
cigars  in  a  box,  he  whispered  in  his  ear: 
[  213  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"You  have  been  lunching  with  a  pretty 
woman,  old  fellow,  don't  you  know?" 

"Your  wife  ?  I  should  think  so !" 

"  My  wife,  yes,  but  the  other  one,  young, 
very  pretty!" 

The  blind  man  seemed  to  reflect,  shook 
his  head  and  said: 

"That  always  gives  pleasure." 

"Her  husband,"  George  went  on,  "was 
killed  in  the  early  days " 

"Has  she  children?"  asked  the  blinded 
man. 

"They  had  only  been  married  three  or 
four  years;  they  would  have  had 

"  Perhaps  she  loved  him  too  much  ?  That 
sometimes  happens,  it  appears." 

"Yes,"  said  George. 

The  blinded  man  turned  his  closed  eyes, 
like  an  extinguished  lighthouse,  in  Odette's 
direction.  He  experienced  a  curious  feeling, 
almost  envy,  of  the  dead  man  who  had  been 
so  much  beloved. 

He  became  more  interested  in  Odette.  It 
appeared  that  she  had  nursed  one  of  his 
comrades  through  a  bad  affair  at  Surville. 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Men  cut  to  pieces,  gaping  wounds,  sensa- 
tional operations,  and  the  agonized  resigna- 
tion of  those  young  men  did  not  produce  in 
her  one-quarter  of  the  pitying  revolt  which 
was  caused  her  by  the  eternal  privation  from 
light  which  a  living,  healthy  being  might 
suffer  by  her  side. 

In  his  presence  she  recovered  something  of 
her  manner  of  speaking  with  the  wounded, 
but  her  natural  frankness  was  not  animated 
by  that  smiling  perspective  of  a  still  possible 
future  which  a  woman  perceives  at  the  bed- 
side of  a  soldier,  even  one  who  has  lost  a 
limb.  The  nurse  speaks  no  falsehood  when 
she  says:  "My  little  friend,  when  you  are 
well,  when  you  once  more  see  your  home, 
your  village — "  But  when  she  is  constrained 
to  omit  from  her  vocabulary  the  radiant 
word  see,  how  constrained  and  powerless 
she  is ! 

Blinded  men  always  awoke  in  her  ex- 
treme compassion  when  she  met  them  in  the 
street,  when  they  were  spoken  of  in  her  pres- 
ence. She  remembered  how  tears  had  risen 
to  her  eyes,  how  her  throat  had  contracted, 


FOC7LNO  LONGER  COUNT 


when  Simone  had  described  that  wedding 
at  the  Madeleine,  the  handsome  couple  com- 
ing down  the  steps,  the  bridegroom  all 
adorned  with  decorations,  in  the  face  of  an 
admiring  crowd  who  suddenly  perceived 
that  he  could  not  see.  But  she"  had  never 
before  been  obliged  to  carry  on  a  conversa- 
tion with  one  of  those  beings  whom  the 
deprivation  of  a  sense  makes  more  different 
from  ourselves  than  the  loss  of  many  limbs. 
She  instinctively  managed  it  very  well, 
though  she  was  moved  to  the  last  degree;  she 
knew  at  once  how  to  speak  to  one  who  had 
been  greatly  afflicted — as  she  would  have 
done  to  a  normal  man,  without  appearing 
to  notice  his  condition.  The  captain  was 
grateful  to  her  for  it,  and  it  was  evident  that 
he  was  much  more  at  ease  with  Odette,  on 
this  first  meeting,  than  he  had  ever  suc- 
ceeded in  being  with  Clotilde,  whom  he  had 
known  a  long  time.  Clotilde,  incapable  of 
dominating  her  selfishness,  could  have  been 
brought  by  no  human  power  to  the  point  of 
forcing  herself  to  an  act  not  agreeable  to 
herself.  Her  husband,  who  was  pained  by 
[  216] 


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her  attitude,  said  to  her:  "See  how  gracious 
Odette  is  I" 

The  blinded  man  went  away  with  his 
friend,  evidently  happy  for  having  chatted 
with  a  pretty  and  afflicted  woman,  for  hav- 
ing been  able  to  induce  her  to  act  as  if 
neither  she  nor  he  had  been  touched  by  mis- 
fortune. 

"Judge,"  said  Clotilde  when  the  two  men 
had  gone  out,  "to  what  point  I  am  stupid 
and  benumbed,  and  what  a  service  you  have 
rendered  me !  But  I  beg  pardon  for  having 
inflicted  it  upon  you." 

"When  a  thing  of  this  sort  pains  me,"  said 
Odette,  "  I  do  not  know  what  I  feel.  I  have 
noticed  that  at  the  hospital,  especially  in  the 
early  days.  I  don't  deny  that  it  seems  as  if  I 
were  being  rubbed  the  wrong  way,  but  there 
is  a  sort  of  miraculous  cure  that  acts  of  it- 
self, penetrating  like  a  drop  of  balm,  to  the 
very  depths  of  the  wound." 

"I  don't  understand  you  at  all,"  said 
Clotilde;  "a  thing  that  bores  me  bores  me, 
and  when  anything  hurts  me  I  simply  must 
push  it  away  or  go  away  myself." 
[  217  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"I  used  to  be  like  you,"  said  Odette;  "I 
am  still,  in  all  that  concerns  my  grief.  For 
that  there  is  no  balm;  nothing  will  ever  heal 
it.  Perhaps  there  is  something  exceptional 
in  love;  it  takes  possession  of  us,  it  makes  us 
happy  to  an  extent  that  blinds  us  to  every- 
thing besides,  or  it  wounds  us  to  death.  But 
all  that  is  not  love,  and  what  tries  to  em- 
bitter us  must  carry  its  antidote  within 
itself." 

"When  we  love,"  said  Clotilde,  "nothing 
else  can  seriously  affect  us." 

"Notwithstanding  which,  I  assure  you 
that  I  have  often  within  the  past  two  years 
been  painfully  affected,  and  I  have  not 
ceased  to  love." 

"You  think  so,  my  poor  Odette!  But 
if  Jean  had  continued  to  be  with  you, 
you  would  have  had  no  feeling  but  for 
him." 

"Clotilde,  you  are  spoiled  by  happiness; 
you  understand  nothing!" 

Clotilde  shook  her  head.  She  felt  that  she 
had  somewhat  nettled  her  friend  in  unveil- 
ing her  thought  to  her. 

[218  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"You    will    come    again    all    the    same, 
Odette  ?  Even  to  face  my  blind  man  ? " 
"If  you  wish,"  said  Odette  sadly. 


G 


XXVII 


'LOTILDE'S  state  of  mind,  which  she 
had  until  now  rather  enjoyed,  began  to  trou- 
ble Odette.  She  had  thought  herself  entirely 
in  harmony  with  Clotilde,  just  as  Clotilde 
had  imagined  herself  to  think  in  unison  with 
Odette,  because  both  of  them  loved,  and 
because  until  then  nothing  had  seemed  to 
come  between  them.  But  to-day  Odette  was 
repelled  by  Clotilde's  attitude,  her  ivory 
tower,  her  aversion  to  suffering,  and  her 
lack  of  suavity.  "I  used  to  be  like  her," 
Odette  said  to  herself.  "Am  I  different  now 
because  events  have  taken  me  by  storm  ? 
Or  is  it  indeed,  as  she  says,  because  Jean, 
whom  I  surely  do  not  love  less,  is  not  here 
to  engross  me  ?" 

She  was  terrorized  by  this  idea,  which 
nevertheless  she  felt  to  be  false.  She  was 
overwhelmed  with  remorse  and  accused 
[  219  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


herself  of  having  grown  cool  in  the  worship 
of  her  husband.  It  was  true  that  too  many 
things  were  conspiring  to  lead  her  away 
from  the  thought  which  ought  to  be  her 
only  one.  She  returned  once  more  to  her 
mortuary  chapel,  her  relics,  her  portraits. 
To  guard  against  her  sorrow  being  frittered 
away  by  the  many  sympathies  with  which 
her  walks  inspired  her,  she  shut  herself  up 
at  home.  The  winter,  aggravated  by  the 
hostile  cold,  was  so  depressing,  the  news 
from  without  was  so  gloomy,  that  Odette 
fell  into  a  sort  of  neurasthenia.  She,  who  had 
never  known  illness,  was  constrained  to  call 
in  a  physician.  He  ordered,  not  medicine, 
but  diversion  at  any  cost. 

"There  are  still  many  theatres  open,"  he 
said;  "I  don't  ask  you  to  go  to  see  'gay 
pieces, '  which  are  cruder  than  anything  else, 
but  go  to  something  good.  A  woman  of 
your  years,"  he  added,  "has  no  right  to  let 
herself  die  of  inanition." 

She  obeyed  the  doctor,  not  to  save  her 
health,  but  because  she  was  touched  with 
shame.  Here  was  another  who  said  to  her: 
[  220  ] 


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"You  have  no  right."  It  was  a  middle-aged 
physician  of  great  celebrity,  and  even  in- 
telligent; he  had  lost  his  two  sons  in  the 
war;  his  wife  had  died  of  grief,  he  himself 
was  mobilized  and  was  working  hard  in  the 
hospitals. 

She  went  once  to  a  benefit  performance. 
Carmen  was  given.  She  had  adored  that 
work  whose  obscure  and  brilliant  genius 
had  often  benumbed  her  like  a  bunch  of 
dark  carnations  with  their  pungent  fra- 
grance. But  her  attention  was  captured  by 
the  presence  at  her  side  of  a  sublieutenant 
whose  sleeve  hung  empty  by  his  side,  and 
when  the  young  man,  all  on  fire,  turned  to 
his  neighbor  on  the  other  side,  who  must 
have  been  his  mother,  or  to  some  friends  be- 
hind him,  the  soft,  superfluous  cloth,  with 
its  short  gold  braid  brushed  Odette's  knee. 
The  officer  became  aware  of  it  and,  ex- 
cusing himself,  gathered  up  the  cloth  with 
his  right  hand.  More  than  this,  from  one  of 
the  boxes  broke  out,  at  almost  regular  and 
too  frequent  intervals,  a  man's  laugh, 
abrupt,  uncontrollable,  and  without  the 
[  221  ] 


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least  relation  to  the  dramatic  work  that  was 
being  given.  Several  persons  turned  that 
way,  indignant  at  first,  even  angry,  until 
one  of  them  perceived  that  this  ill-timed 
gayety  came  from  an  officer  who  was  listen- 
ing with  the  utmost  seriousness,  but  who 
was  affected  by  the  results  of  a  cerebral 
shock.  Word  was  whispered  about,  no  head 
was  again  turned;  every  one  was  universally 
commiserating  the  infirmity  whose  tragic 
character  equalled  that  of  the  masterpiece 
to  which  they  were  listening. 

'  You  must  be  diverted  at  any  cost/ ' 
thought  Odette. 

"In  the  matter  of  therapeutics,"  her 
friend  La  Villaumer  said  to  her,  not  long 
after  this  experience,  "for  my  part  I  believe 
in  a  very  old  rule,  which  says:  'For  great 
evils  great  remedies/  In  times  like  ours, 
for  any  one  who  has  greatly  suffered,  diver- 
sions are  less  appropriate  than  strenuous 
tasks." 


[  222  ] 


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XXVIII 

UDETTE  went  occasionally  to  lunch  with 
Clotilde  to  help  her  entertain  her  blinded 
man.  In  general  she  went  about  fitfully, 
now  here,  now  there,  to  offer  her  small  ser- 
vices. She  was  welcomed  at  sales,  for  she 
pleased  people. 

She  even  inspired,  at  her  booths,  what 
people  call  passions — sudden  and  burning — 
which,  however,  manifested  themselves  in- 
directly and  discreetly,  so  much  did  even 
the  boldest  man  dread  to  approach  a  young 
widow  universally  known  to  be  so  proper, 
and  so  faithful  to  her  grief. 

The  first  was  a  commandant  of  infantry 
who  had  been  wounded  three  or  four  times, 
and  who  had  a  long  convalescent  leave; 
he  was  barely  thirty-four  years  old,  and  was 
one  of  the  finest  types  of  soldier  in  the 
present  war.  After  having  conversed  with 
Odette  he  sent  a  friend  to  ask  her  if  later, 
strictly  speaking,  much  later,  she  would 
consent  to  become  his  wife.  She  declined 
[  223  ] 


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the  request  as  if  it  had  been  insane;  could 
any  one  suppose  that  she  would  ever  marry 
again  ? 

The  second  was  a  man  about  fifty  years 
of  age,  well  known  about  town,  a  member  of 
the  Jockey  Club,  enjoying,  as  the  novels  say, 
an  immense  fortune  and  unquestionably 
holding  a  very  prominent  position  in  society. 
He  was  the  organizer  of  most  of  the  war 
charities  in  which  Odette's  help  had  been 
sought.  He  loaned  for  them  his  buildings 
and  what  remained  to  him  of  his  staff  of  ser- 
vants, gave  to  them  his  time  and  his  purse. 
Odette  had  touched  him  with  one  of  those 
lightning  strokes  which  reach  only  men  of 
that  age,  and  after  her  refusal  he  fell  vio- 
lently ill,  remained  depressed,  downcast, 
aged,  incapable  of  managing  his  business, 
obliged  to  retire  to  one  of  his  country- 
places,  where  he  became  oblivious  of  every- 
thing, even  of  the  war  and  its  evils,  of 
which  up  to  this  time  he  had  thought  only 
to  seek  a  remedy,  thinking  now  only  of  the 
cruel  Odette. 

She  was  as  indifferent  to  this  adventure 
[  224  ] 


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as  to  the  other,  notwithstanding  the  friendly 
remonstrances  that  poured  in  upon  her. 
The  latter  offer  had  been  made  to  her 
through  Mme.  de  Blauve,  and  this  friend, 
while  bowing  to  the  sentiment  of  fidelity 
which  bound  Odette  to  a  beloved  memory, 
took  courage  to  point  out  to  her  that  in  the 
midst  of  her  married  happiness  she  had 
failed  to  found  a  family.  Odette,  with  all  her 
intelligence,  her  sincere  devotion,  did  not 
understand.  She  had  loved  one  man;  she 
continued  to  love  his  memory.  No  other 
idea,  with  whatever  importance  it  might  be 
clothed,  commanded  her  respect;  she  under- 
stood only  her  own  heart,  which  simply 
clung  like  an  ivy  to  the  tree,  however  dried 
up  it  might  be,  and  to  which  no  power  could 
prevent  her  clinging. 

All  Odette's  friends  shared  Mme.  de 
Blauve's  opinion,  however  unlike  they  might 
be  to  this  noble  woman — all  of  them,  even 
to  Clotilde. 

Yes,  even  Clotilde  blamed  her  for  not 
having  at  least  accepted  the  young  com- 
mandant. Odette  was  amazed  at  this,  the 
[  225  ] 


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result  being  that  these  two  loving  women 
fell  out. 

La  Villaumer,  to  whom  Odette  confided 
this  trouble,  said  to  her: 

"  If  your  friend  Clotilde  were  to  be  so  un- 
fortunate as  to  lose  her  husband,  whom  she 
adores,  the  chances  are  sixty  to  a  hundred 
that  after  a  certain  time  she  would  love  an- 
other as  much  or  almost  as  much  as  him, 
while  you  judge  such  a  transferrence  of  love 
inadmissible." 

"  But,  after  all,  one  loves  or  one  does  not 
love;  that  is  perfectly  simple  !" 

"No,  indeed,  it  is  not  so  simple  as  that. 
One  loves  and  one  can  love  as  Clotilde  does, 
or  as  you  do,  yourself.  We  do  not  easily  dis- 
tinguish differences  so  long  as  lovers,  being 
united,  are  happy." 

"You  frighten  me.  Are  there  then  loves 
that  are  not  love  ?  Is  not  sentiment  the  finest 
thing  in  love  ?  And  can  there  be  a  fine  senti- 
ment that  is  not  lasting  ?" 

"In  the  first  place,  my  dear  friend,  per- 
mit me  to  believe  that  you  do  not  profess 
your  sentiment  because  it  is  fine,  nor  does  it 
[  226  ] 


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last  with  you  because  you  find  it  beautiful. 
You  find  your  sentiment  beautiful  because 
it  is  yours.  You  look  upon  it  as  lasting  in- 
definitely because  your  eyes  are  incapable  of 
looking  as  far  as  its  end;  that  is  all.  In  your 
case  there  is  no  constraint,  no  submission 
to  any  law,  aesthetic  or  moral.  You  feel  that 
way.  Your  friend  Clotilde  loves  in  her  way, 
and  she  finds  it  beautiful,  believe  me." 

"All  the  same !  All  the  same,  there  is  an 
almost  general  consent  to  consider  that  love 
superior  which  is  adorned  with  sentiment, 
and  does  not  consent  to  be  short-lived/' 

"Yes;  and  this  is  in  conformity  with  the 
morality  which  has  ruled  us  thus  far.  This 
morality  is  all  delicacy.  But,  reduced  to  this 
degree  of  purity,  will  it  suffice  to  keep  alive 
a  struggle  as  ardent  as  the  one  which  we  are 
now  witnessing,  for  the  possession  of  a  part 
of  the  outside  of  the  world,  or  even  for  the 
supremacy  of  certain  ideas  ?  It  must  con- 
cede provisionally  a  preponderance  to  ma- 
terial, mortal  life,  since  it  is  evident  that 
the  morality  of  the  just  will  triumph  only 
on  condition  that  it  has  force  on  its  side. 
[  227  ] 


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Do  you  follow  me,  my  poor  friend  ?  All 
this  is  very  dry.  But  this  is  my  way  of  tell- 
ing you  that  these  crystalline  sentiments, 
that  are  an  'ornament'  in  ordinary  times, 
become  a  luxury  in  our  age  of  iron  and  fire. 
Luxury  is  no  longer  permissible.  The  time 
has  come  when  all  refinements  must  give 
way  to  a  very  stern  reality.  As  you  have 
been  very  well  told:  'We  are  not  our  own/ 
General  consent  ?  It  should  be  given  to  the 
best  good  of  the  cause  which  unites  us  all, 
and  carries  us  all  away  with  itself.  Forgive 
me,  my  very  dear  friend.  I  am  going  to  com- 
mit a  rudeness  which  gives  me  pain — and 
you  know  that  only  the  extremity  of  an  un- 
heard-of calamity  could  bring  me  to  that — 
yes,  your  sentiment,  with  its  persistence,  is 
beautiful  in  itself,  most  beautiful;  but  we 
are  no  longer  at  leisure  to  look  at  things  '  in 
themselves.'  Well,  if  your  friend  Clotilde 
had  lost  her  husband  in  your  place  and  at 
the  same  time,  and  if  she  were  to-day  the 
wife  of  another  who  had  made  her  a  mother, 
for  example,  we  ought  really  to  hold  her  case 
in  higher  esteem  than  yours !" 
[  228  ] 


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A  sob  choked  Odette.  They  were  walking 
along  the  Champs-Elysees.  She  sought  for  a 
chair  and  sank  upon  it. 

"I  am  not  vexed  with  you,"  she  said  as 
soon  as  she  could  speak;  "something  in  my 
inmost  being  understands  you —  It  has  al- 
ready been  said  to  me —  But  it  is  hard  !" 

"The  time  is  exceptional." 

XXIX 

V-/DETTE  spent  much  of  her  time  in  con- 
soling poor  Rose.  Her  husband's  death  had 
passed  almost  unnoticed.  But  other  and 
very  dramatic  deaths  had  also  passed  un- 
noticed. When  men  were  brought  home  in 
fragments  it  made  a  sensation,  but  once  they 
were  dead  the  sad  equality  of  the  earth  ob- 
scured their  memory.  Indescribable  episodes 
had  attained  such  a  character,  and  had 
reached  such  numbers,  that  people  hardly 
dared  speak  of  them.  Minds  were  saturated 
and  automatically  closed  against  any  new 
sensation.  Many  were  unable  to  endure  any 
story  of  the  war,  whether  in  the  newspapers 
[  229  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


or  in  books.  Odette  recalled  to  mind  the  im- 
pression which  the  wounded  had  formerly 
made.  They  were  already  saying  "formerly" 
when  speaking  of  the  present  war !  Now 
there  were  wounded  everywhere.  It  was 
rather  the  unscathed  men  upon  whom  one 
looked  as  if  to  say  to  them:  "See  here,  you  ! 
what  are  you  doing  with  your  arms,  with 
your  legs  ?"  Certain  persons,  with  a  strong 
revulsion  of  the  instinct  of  self-preservation, 
refused,  like  Clotilde,  even  to  think  about 
the  war;  others,  on  the  other  hand,  buried 
themselves  in  it  with  passionate  intensity. 

Mme.  de  Blauve,  who  had  become  fond 
of  Odette  and  occasionally  came  to  see  her, 
now  came  to  announce  the  marriage  of  her 
eldest  daughter.  She  told  the  news  almost  as 
if  saying:  "At  last !"  as  if  it  were  the  case 
of  an  old  maid  whom  she  had  despaired  of 
marrying  off.  Mile,  de  Blauve  was  barely 
sixteen,  she  was  attractive  and  endowed 
with  much  charm,  had  been  most  carefully 
educated,  and  promised  to  be  really  beauti- 
ful. She  was  to  marry  a  wounded  sub- 
lieutenant. 

[  230  ] 


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"Ah  !"  said  Odette;  "does  she  love  him  ?" 

"He  is  a  young  man  of  good  family,"  said 
Mme.  de  Blauve,  "  and  he  has  behaved  ad- 
mirably." 

"  But  he  will  return  to  the  front !  You  will 
be  in  perpetual  anxiety !" 

"Not  that,"  replied  Mme.  de  Blauve. 
"To  be  sure,  my  daughter  would  have  liked 
to  be  the  wife  of  a  soldier  who  remained  a 
soldier,  like  her  father.  But  soldiers  in 
active  service  will  always  find  some  one  to 
marry  them,  and  wives  must  be  found  for 
those  less  favored,  who  have  been  checked 
in  their  career " 

"Has  her  fiance  been  retired?"  asked 
Odette.  "Don't  tell  me  that  he  is  badly— 

"Oh,  this  is  not  the  time  to  think  about 
things  that  girls  used  to  care  for;  the  ques- 
tion is  to  save  our  men  by  giving  them  wives, 
so  that  they  may  be  in  a  position  to  found  a 
family.  This  young  man  is  from  the  devas- 
tated regions.  He  has  lost  all  his  family — 
some  of  them  have  been  shot,  others  have 
died  during  the  occupation  of  the  enemy — 
and  it  is  entirely  impossible  for  him  to  earn 
[  231  ] 


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a  decent  living.  We  ourselves  have  sacri- 
ficed more  blood  than  money;  my  daughter 
will  still  have  a  certain  amount  of  fortune, 
therefore " 

"  But  what  is  the  matter  with  him  ?  What 
has  he  lost  ?"  asked  Odette,  thinking  only  of 
that  absolute  union  of  two  beings  which  had 
illuminated  her  own  life. 

"Oh,  it  is  very  sad/*  said  Mme.  de 
Blauve;  "my  future  son-in-law  is  one  of 
those  most  deserving  of  interest,  who  have 
received  face  wounds.  His  face — how  can  I 
tell  you? — lacks  almost  everything  except 
the  passages  that  are  necessary  for  eating 
and  breathing — — " 

Odette  uttered  an  inarticulate  exclama- 
tion and  rang  the  bell.  But  she  did  not  faint 
until  Mme.  de  Blauve  was  gone. 

The  case  of  Mile,  de  Blauve  evoked  more 
criticism  than  admiration.  According  to 
some  it  was  absolutely  too  terrible  and  not 
to  be  thought  about.  In  most  cases,  how- 
ever, sensitiveness  had  been  so  dulled  by 
the  constant  hearing  of  war-stories  that  very 
[  232  ] 


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little  attention  was  paid  to  this  act  of  super- 
human devotion.  Some  said:  "The  mother 
is  crazy  and  the  young  girl  does  not  realize 
what  she  is  doing.  One  may  do  violence  to 
nature,  or  may  dupe  it  for  a  short  time;  this 
is  a  time  when  we  ought  to  resolve  upon  any 
sacrifice,  even  to  throwing  ourselves  into  the 
arms  of  death;  but  death  is  either  the  end  or 
the  beginning  of  the  unknown.  The  idea  of 
marrying  a  superb  girl  of  sixteen  to  a  man 
without  a  face!" 

Yet  every  one  knew  that  far  from  bring- 
ing pressure  to  bear  upon  her  daughter, 
Mme.  de  Blauve  had  made  every  possible 
effort  to  prevent  her  marrying  another 
wounded  man,  an  unlucky  fellow  who,  ap- 
proaching a  trench  with  a  grenade  in  each 
hand,  had  had  both  eyes  burned  at  the  very 
moment  when  a  bursting  shell  had  set  off 
the  two  grenades  and  shattered  both  hands. 
What  she  was  now  doing  was  a  slight  thing 
in  comparison  with  the  thing  that  she  had 
prevented. 

Odette  felt  that  she  must  know  La  Villau- 
mer's  opinion  on  this  matter.  They  had  no 
[  233  ] 


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regular  engagement  for  meeting,  and  met 
only  by  chance.  She  decided  to  go  to  his 
house  shortly  before  the  luncheon  hour.  An 
old  servant  ushered  her  into  a  room  where, 
to  her  great  surprise,  she  heard  the  tones  of 
a  harmonium  mingled  with  a  man's  voice 
entirely  untrained.  It  proceeded  from  the 
neighboring  room,  separated  from  her  by  a 
glass  door  partly  screened  by  a  curtain  of 
Chinese  silk.  The  thing  was  so  unusual  and 
so  puzzling  that  she  could  not  refrain  from 
peeping  around  the  edge  of  the  curtain.  She 
saw  at  the  instrument  an  organist  whom 
she  knew,  and  standing  beside  him  a  man 
bereft  of  both  arms,  and  the  pose  of  whose 
head  was  that  of  a  blind  man  trying  to 
catch  the  notes  which  the  teacher  was  pa- 
tiently repeating.  All  around  them  were  sol- 
diers wearing  black  glasses,  with  closed  eyes 
or  with  bandaged  faces,  and  Villaumer  in 
his  dressing-gown  coming  and  going  among 
them.  He  suddenly  disappeared  and  came 
into  the  room  where  Odette  was  standing. 

"I  have  caught  you  !"  said  she.  "Try  now 
to  convince  me  that  what  I  have  been  told  of 

[  234  ] 


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you  is  not  true !  You  are  no  longer  in  your 
own  home !" 

"My  good  friend,"  he  replied,  "I  am  hav- 
ing lessons  given  to  the  most  unfortunate  of 
those  unhappy  ones  whom  evil  fortune  and 
inaction  are  driving  to  despair.  They  are  be- 
ing taught  the  rudiments  of  music;  they  are 
trying  to  sing;  it  occupies  them." 

"I  knew  that  you  were  kind " 

"I  am  not  kind;  I  am  generally  severe 
upon  men.  But  the  sight  of  misfortune  is  in- 
tolerable to  me;  and  for  men  like  these,  who 
have  been  three-quarters  destroyed  for  the 
sake  of  saving  us,  yes,  I  confess  that  I  could 
give  my  last  shirt;  I  would  wait  upon  them 
at  table —  Will  you  take  luncheon  with 
us?" 

Through  the  half-open  door  into  the  din- 
ing-room she  could  see  a  table  spread  for 
twelve. 

"Do  you  take  lunch  with  them  ?"  asked 
Odette. 

"I  permit  myself  that  honor —  It  is  my 
last  self-indulgence.  Well,  will  you  take  ad- 
vantage of  it  ?" 

[  235  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"I  cannot,  my  friend,  I  cannot.  I  should 
weep  through  the  whole  meal.  That  is  not 
what  they  need." 

"No.  One  must  have  the  courage  to  be- 
stow upon  them  the  gayety — which  we  don't 
possess.  Social  hypocrisy  has  not  been  prac- 
tised all  this  time  in  vain,  if  it  has  taught  this 
to  some  of  us." 

"I  am  ashamed  of  my  weakness,"  said 
Odette.  "I  should  not  flinch  before  any  sort 
of  wound,  but  the  thought  that  the  war  has 
deprived  a  man  of  the  light  of  day  forces  me 
to  ask  myself  whether  I  myself  have  a  right 
to  look  upon  these  beautiful  silks,  this  sun- 

light — " 

"Take  pleasure  in  the  silks,  in  objects  of 
art,  and  in  sunlight,  you  who  are  made  to 
charm  that  portion  of  humanity  that  re- 
mains intact.  You  would  not,  on  the  pretext 
that  millions  of  men  have  been  plunged  into 
darkness  or  death,  irritate  them  gratui- 
tously by  an  ill-regulated  sympathy  ?  Innu- 
merable lives  have,  alas,  been  shattered,  but 
life  remains,  the  light  is  brilliant,  plants  are 
growing,  animals  and  even  men  still  swarm 

[236] 


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upon  the  earth.  Recall  to  mind  the  tragic 
and  paradoxical  truth  that  human  life,  which 
is  the  highest  work  and  appears  to  have  been 
the  purpose  of  the  creation  of  the  world,  is 
that  for  which,  on  the  whole,  that  great  work 
appears  to  care  the  least.  Whatever  part 
man  may  be  called  to  play,  his  destiny  is  to 
pass  away.  That  horror  of  war  with  which 
we  are  inspired  by  the  extermination  of  men 
is  in  the  long  run  kept  up  and  perpetuated 
by  material  depredations;  the  memory  of  an 
illustrious  building  destroyed  will  last  longer 
than  that  of  a  hundred  thousand  young  men 
mown  down  in  their  youth." 

"And  meanwhile  you  are  throwing  over- 
board all  you  possess  to  rescue  men  who  are 
only  half  alive.  That  is  all  that  I  wanted  to 
know." 

XXX 

VEDETTE  spent  several  days  in  bed  as  a 
consequence  of  the  marriage  of  the  little  de 
Blauve  girl — which  took  place  in  the  strict- 
est privacy,  and  which  she  had  not  attended. 

[  237  ] 


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But  her  imagination  was  lively,  and  she  pic- 
tured things  to  herself. 

She  sought  out  her  friend  La  Villaumer,  as 
it  were,  now  that  she  had  detected  him  in  an 
act  of  kindness.  As  for  him,  in  her  presence 
he  took  less  pains  to  conceal  his  acts,  now 
that  she  understood  him  better. 

"I  have  always  loved  men,"  he  said. 
"Why  should  I  not  love  them  since  I  have 
always  professed  to  criticise  them  ?  Have  I 
misunderstood  them  ?  Remember  how  in- 
dulgent I  was  for  all  that  in  them  is  so  far 
removed  from  the  only  thing  that  I  really 
prize — intelligence.  How  vulnerable  I  have 
been  to  their  instincts  !  How  I  have  smiled  at 
their  innumerable  follies !  I  simply  enjoyed 
studying  them,  without  the  slightest  par- 
tiality, notwithstanding  my  secret  reverence 
for  reason,  which  seems  to  me  to  be  a  torch 
lighted  at  the  altar  of  a  god  and  carefully 
transmitted  by  certain  privileged  beings  to 
certain  privileged  beings,  while  yet  the  chain 
that  they  form  never  succeeds — no  one  can 
tell  why — in  producing  an  illumination. 
Therefore,  I  have  never  believed  that  the 

[238] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


world  belonged  to  what  we  have  learned  to 
venerate  under  the  name  of  intelligence.  In- 
telligence is  a  divine  part  which  no  doubt 
gives  us  notions  of  what  there  is  on  high,  but 
which  has  almost  no  application  to  things 
here  below.  The  world  is  not  governed  by  in- 
telligence. Sometimes  intelligence  makes 
converts,  and  we  believe  that  its  reign  has 
come.  Illusion !  It  is  precisely  then  that  we 
are  upon  the  point  of  falling  again  into 
blessed  ignorance,  and  going  back  to  the  age 
of  barbarism.  Do  you  know,  I  am  tempted  to 
believe  that  the  age  of  barbarism  is  the  nor- 
mal period  of  humanity !  We  probably  need 
cruelty,  absurdity,  injustice,  superstition, 
torrents  of  bloodshed,  in  order  that  the  mys- 
tery which  we  admire  under  the  name  of  life 
may  exist  and  perpetuate  itself.  Our  bodies 
can  be  fed  only  by  offensive  means.  The  ma- 
jority of  human  pleasures  are  unfathomably 
stupid.  The  great  masses  obey  certain  ele- 
mentary formulas,  sayings  of  which  they 
have  never  weighed  the  meaning,  and  which 
often  have  no  meaning.  Governments  are 
not  carried  on  by  luminous  reasoning,  but 
[  239  ] 


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by  the  allurement  of  sounding  words  that 
flatter  the  senses.  In  order  to  hold  our  own 
in  a  large  and  influential  social  group,  my 
poor  friend,  are  we  going  to  be  called  to  ad- 
mit the  timeliness  of  belief  in  prophets,  in 
wonder-workers,  in  ghosts,  in  the  platitudes 
of  'apparitions/  in  the  genius  of  simple 
minds  ?  Is  a  torrent  of  puerility  about  to  in- 
undate the  surface  of  the  globe  ?  May  it  be 
that  this  is  the  indispensable  element  of  rep- 
aration ?  Intelligence,  reduced  to  its  own 
resources,  has  in  fact  no  power  of  expansion, 
no  means  of  action.  It  is  enough  to  make  one 
die  of  shame  and  vexation !  Law,  justice, 
liberty — we  can  imagine  men  shrugging 
their  shoulders  when  they  hear  the  words, 
for  the  words  are  efficacious  only  when  they 
are  emptied  of  their  significance  and  trav- 
estied into  elementary  ideas  which  naturally 
lead  to  the  violation  of  law,  liberty,  justice. 
In  the  matter  of  ideas  men  believe  only  in 
their  tutelary  virtue;  they  are  protecting 
divinities;  and  the  idea  is  nothing  but  a 
word  that  men  symbolize  on  their  flagstaffs, 
like  a  fetich.  We  are  as  credulous  as  Homer's 
[  240  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


warriors.  Minerva  fights  with  us.  For  that 
matter,  I  do  not  think  that  there  ever  was  a 
better  opportunity  for  adopting  the  theo- 
cratic conception  of  the  world,  for  men  are 
at  this  moment  given  over  to  the  elements, 
and  the  greatest  political  genius  imaginable 
would  probably  be  powerless  so  long  as  the 
convulsions  with  which  the  world  is  attacked 
are  not  quieted  of  themselves.  In  these 
conditions  there  is  no  room  in  the  home  of  a 
poor  fellow  for  any  but  the  virtues  of  pity 
and  affection.  I  confess  the  fact,  my  dear 
Odette,  I  can  no  longer  control  my  heart." 

"To  be  moved  to  compassion  is  to  be 
weakened,  I  have  been  told." 

"There  is  truth  in  that  opinion  so  far  as 
those  persons  are  concerned  who  are  more 
especially  called  by  circumstances  to  act, 
and  especially  to  direct  the  actions  of  others; 
such  must  put  on  blinders  and  look  only  to 
the  immediate  purpose  which  demands  all 
their  energies.  But  it  is  desirable  that  in  the 
midst  of  this  tempest-tossed  world  a  few 
contemplative  persons  shall  devote  them- 
selves to  pity  as  to  the  conservation  of  a 
[  241  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


'precious  blood';  if  only  for  the  sake  of  the 
efficacy,  or  at  least  of  the  beauty  of  the 
thing.  And  the  worshippers  at  this  altar  will 
need  to  contend — do  you  know  with  whom  ? 
— with  humanity  itself,  which  has  little  re- 
membrance of  its  own  ills,  and  which,  like  a 
kitten,  hastens  to  play  with  the  first  ray  of 
sunshine.  It  is  true  that  the  dead  keep  a 
great  silence." 

XXXI 

VEDETTE  was  at  home  one  evening,  and 
alone.  Stretched  out  upon  a  lounge,  she  was 
gazing  at  the  photographs  of  Jean  on  little 
tables  or  within  her  reach  upon  the  walls, 
hypnotizing  herself  with  the  sight  of  them, 
kissing  them  as  she  always  did. 

Amelia  came  in  saying  that  the  next 
apartment  was  "crammed  full." 

"Madame,  if  there  aren't  twenty  men 
six  feet  high  in  that  room,  my  own  poor  hus- 
band isn't  a  prisoner  with  the  Boches  !" 

In  fact  there  was  a  great  commotion  on 
the  other  side  of  the  partition.  Furniture 
[  242  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


and  chairs  were  being  moved  about,  and  as 
all  sounds  penetrated  through  the  cracks  of 
the  door,  the  syllables  of  an  unfamiliar  lan- 
guage could  be  heard,  perhaps  Rumanian 
or  Russian.  The  neighbor  was  a  foreigner. 

Suddenly  there  was  silence.  Amelia  had 
withdrawn.  It  was  an  imposed,  perhaps  a 
concerted,  silence.  "It  is  a  musical  recital," 
said  Odette  to  herself.  In  fact  she  almost 
immediately  recognized  the  sprightly  touch 
of  the  pianist,  mellow,  languishing,  melting 
into  the  keyboard  as  into  a  tender  flesh,  by 
turns  nervous,  light,  cruel  as  a  hammer, 
heavy  as  a  pile-driver,  seeming  to  crush  the 
instrument,  then  suddenly  soft,  fluttering  on 
the  keys  like  the  wing  of  a  dying  bird. 
Though  the  woman  often  played  for  herself 
alone,  this  was  not  the  first  time  that  many 
people  had  gathered  around  her  to  hear  her 
music. 

A  chorus  of  men's  voices  burst  forth.  It 
was  strange,  weird,  enough  to  make  one 
catch  one's  breath.  Odette  listened.  That 
sensitiveness  to  music  which  often  reached 
depths  in  her  unknown  to  herself,  was  sud- 
[  243  1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


denly  wrought  up  to  its  utmost  pitch.  She 
did  not  know  the  chorus,  and  sought  in  vain 
for  an  author  to  whom  to  ascribe  it.  It 
might  be  a  popular  song,  perhaps  very  an- 
cient, to  judge  by  its  artless  simplicity,  its 
pure  rhythm,  and  its  wild,  sweet  accent.  At 
times  a  soprano  voice  uprose  in  a  solo,  and 
the  chorus,  a  third  below,  responded  softly 
in  whisperings  that  grew  nearer  and  nearer, 
quickly  spreading  like  oil  upon  the  sea,  or  as 
if  transmitted  from  man  to  man  over  im- 
mense plains  and  endlessly  flowing  rivers. 
Suddenly  two  or  three  raucous  or  strident 
cries  gathered  up  all  the  voices  to  a  sharp 
point  directed  toward  the  heavens.  Then  all 
sound  ceased,  and  one  felt  as  if  falling  from 
a  superb  altitude  into  the  depths  of  an 
abyss. 

Then  the  fingers  of  the  enchantress  ex- 
ecuted a  ballad  of  Balakirieff,  or  Dvorak's 
hymn,  "On  the  Death  of  a  Hero."  And  then, 
after  a  pause,  another  chorus  broke  forth. 

There  was  in  it  all  a  melancholy  which  no 
words  could  so  much  as  suggest,  in  which 
amid  the  uniformly  plaintive  murmur  one 
[  244  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


discerned  such  lifelike  wailings  that  one 
could  have  stretched  out  the  hands  to  suc- 
cor these  vague,  unrecognized,  and  multi- 
plied sufferings.  They  swelled,  spread 
abroad,  took  on  so  mighty  an  extension 
that  in  spite  of  oneself  one  saw  the  surface 
of  the  suffering  world,  heard  the  feeble  and 
resigned  voice  of  man,  of  man  always  the 
sport  of  fate,  always  in  leading-strings,  al- 
ways sacrificed  like  cattle  to  gods  whose 
secret  he  could  not  fathom.  It  was  the  la- 
ment of  the  ancient  earth  of  humanity, 
timid,  uncouth,  and  despairing,  issuing  from 
bruised  hearts,  from  torn  flesh,  from  souls 
robbed  of  their  innocent  ideals,  a  disturbing 
lament  issuing  from  the  borders  of  marshes, 
from  forests,  from  glacial  plains,  from  desert 
steppes,  from  nameless  villages,  prisons, 
palaces,  battle-fields,  tombs,  and  stoically, 
pathetically,  and  yet  childishly  addressed 
to — no  one  ! 

Odette  had  often  been  on  the  verge  of 

sentiments    corresponding    to    this    music, 

primitive,  barbarous,  perhaps  divine,  but 

when  music  comes  to  be  mingled  with  our 

[  245  1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


sentiments  it  reveals  them  to  themselves  and 
amplifies  them  without  measure.  Odette  saw 
what  she  had  never  dared  to  see;  for  the  first 
time  she  was  transported  outside  of  herself, 
or  at  least  she  felt  the  conviction  that  she 
was.  It  produced  in  her  such  an  overturning 
of  her  points  of  view  as  almost  to  make  her 
dizzy.  She  suddenly  discovered  how  com- 
pletely she  had  considered  everything  with 
reference  to  herself,  even  in  her  seemingly 
most  generous  moments.  At  this  instant  she 
thought  of  herself  in  relation  to  the  incal- 
culable number  of  persons  who  were  not  she. 
It  was  not  that  the  moans  of  humanity  were 
now  reaching  her  for  the  first  time,  but  it 
was  the  first  time  that  the  sobs  of  others 
came  to  her  ears  with  a  tone  of  majestic  sad- 
ness which  forced  her  to  grovel  upon  the 
earth,  saying:  "I  no  longer  count;  I  am  only 
the  servant  of  grief." 

It  was  a  painful  sentiment  if  there  is  one, 
and  yet,  by  a  curious  contradiction,  a  senti- 
ment in  the  same  degree  joyful.  A  boundless 
commiseration  caused  her  heart  to  throb 
and  tears  to  come  to  her  eyes,  and  yet  this 

[  246 1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


painful  sympathy,  far  from  being  cruel  or 
depressing,  wrought  in  her  soul  an  unsus- 
pected outflowering,  like  an  outburst  of  in- 
conceivable elation  in  which  was  mingled 
bitterness  and  pity. 

There  is  no  compensation  for  the  personal 
suffering  that  we  may  experience.  On  the 
contrary,  in  a  close  and  complete  union  with 
the  sufferings  of  others  is  hidden  a  joy  of 
mutual  pain;  an  active  desire  to  give  aid 
impels  to  the  beginning  of  a  helpful  act,  pro- 
vokes to  so  fervent  a  prayer  for  heavenly 
mercy  that  the  heart  no  longer  knows 
whether  it  lies  prone  in  utter  distress  or  has 
attained  to  a  radiant  phase  of  existence  in- 
comparably higher  than  its  paltry  estate  as 
an  isolated  being.  The  word  "love"  presents 
itself  to  a  soul  thus  irradiated  without  any 
sustaining  form  which  might  limit  its  char- 
acter; it  is  without  extent  as  without  form; 
as  to  the  source  that  feeds  it,  springing  up 
no  one  knows  where,  one  is  convinced  that 
there  is  no  fear  that  it  will  ever  be  exhausted. 

Odette  often  wept,  but  to-day  it  was  with 
other  tears.  She  took  up  one  of  Jean's  pho- 
[  247  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


tographs  and  found  but  one  word  to  say 
to  it: 

"Forgive  me!" 

She  understood  neither  what  she  felt  nor 
what  she  was  doing,  but  she  was  conscious  of 
failing  Jean.  Not  of  failing  Jean  in  favor  of 
another,  but  for  the  sake  of  a  multitude  of 
others  among  whom  no  one  man  could  be 
discerned.  When  she  was  able  to  formulate  a 
thought,  she  said  to  herself:"!  was  pity- 
ing." She  might  have  said:  "Charity  has 
taken  possession  of  me." 

XXXII 

JL  HERE  was  no  sign  that  any  event  had 
occurred  that  evening.  Odette  had  spent  it 
alone  in  her  little  drawing-room.  The  chorus 
in  the  next  apartment  was  stilled.  But  that 
evening  was  made  up  of  the  most  important 
hours  which  the  young  wife  had  experienced 
since  the  death  of  her  husband. 

Odette  was  aware  that  something  had 
been  revealed  within  herself,  but  she  was  ill 
adapted  to  analyze  herself,  and  the  phe- 
[248  ] 


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nomenon  was  still  wrapped  in  mist.  It  had 
manifested  its  reality  only  by  a  single  act 
of  hers — an  act  which  she  remembered, 
which  abode  with  her:  the  prayer  for  for- 
giveness addressed  to  the  picture  of  her  be- 
loved Jean.  She  returned  continually  to  this 
material  fact;  she  had  seized  the  photograph 
and  had  kissed  it  as  if  she  had  been  at  fault. 
Thanks  to  this  fact,  the  spiritual  operations 
of  which  it  was  the  conclusion  were  not  ar- 
rested, did  not  vanish  like  smoke,  and  pur- 
sued her  that  night,  on  the  morrow,  and 
during  the  following  days. 

So  sudden  a  burst  of  light  might  indeed 
have  been  ephemeral  in  character.  We  are 
all  subject,  especially  under  an  exterior  in- 
fluence acting  upon  the  senses,  to  similar 
spasms  of  enthusiasm,  or  to  dreams  of  a  like 
generosity  which  may  be  only  a  passing  im- 
pulse. They  die  away  and  we  return  to  a 
condition  which  we  call  reasonable,  that  is  to 
say,  lucid,  calm,  well-balanced,  and  tame. 

With  Odette  this  illumination  had  not  the 
character  of  a  sudden  impulse,  but  was 
rather  the  outcome  of  a  long  and  almost  un- 
[  249  ] 


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conscious  preparation.  How  many  words, 
how  many  tidings,  how  many  hints  regis- 
tered in  her  memory,  how  many  puzzling 
suggestions,  how  many  dramatic  scenes, 
how  many  ideas  had  been  as  so  many  arrows 
of  direction,  guiding  her  toward  the  place 
where  she  had  received  the  divine  spark ! 
How  many  books  read,  how  many  mus- 
ings, apparently  without  result,  had  deter- 
mined the  direction  that  had  brought  her 
here !  Odette  was  like  a  clay  which  during 
two  and  a  half  years  had  been  continually 
receiving  the  touches  of  a  thumb  or  chisel, 
powerless  to  give  her  the  form  which  an  in- 
visible artist  desired  her  to  take,  and  the  last 
touch,  removing  an  encumbering  bit,  had 
produced  precisely  the  shape  desired. 

Odette  awoke  next  morning  in  the  same 
condition  in  which  she  had  fallen  asleep, 
with  the  one  difference  that  she  no  longer 
wept.  But  the  tears  of  the  evening  had  had 
their  sweetness.  She  found  herself  in  an  al- 
most grateful  tranquillity.  She  went  and 
came  in  the  midst  of  Jean's  photographs, 
and  Jean  did  not  reproach  her  for  her  new 
[  250  ] 


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state  of  mind.  His  memory  seemed  to  be 
in  nowise  outraged.  And  yet  Odette  did  not 
forget  that  she  had  begged  his  forgiveness, 
as  if  it  had  been  possible  that  she  had  failed 
him.  This  fact  marked  a  well-determined 
date  in  the  perturbations  of  her  soul.  But 
it  seemed  to  her  that  she  had  received  to  her 
"Forgive  me!"  a  gentle,  calming  reply,  a 
loving  approbation. 


YET 


XXXIII 


the  moment  came  when  it  seemed  to 
her  that  she  was  losing  her  reason.  She  had 
seen  many  cases  of  cerebral  disturbance 
since  the  war;  they  had  been  more  or  less 
apparent.  Some  persons  of  her  acquaintance 
had  been  duly  shut  up  in  insane  asylums, 
but  there  were  many  at  large  who  showed 
the  almost  imperceptible  wound  by  which 
the  microbe  had  penetrated. 

By  way  of  discovering  whether  or  no  she 
was  mentally  affected,  she  imposed  upon 
herself  the  test  of  behaving  for  a  while  like  a 
woman  who  has  decided  to  lead  the  usual 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


life  until  the  end.  She  said  to  herself:  "I  am 
not  insane,  for  I  think  it  requires  more  cour- 
age to  adopt,  every  day  and  every  hour,  the 
attitude  of  ordinary  life,  as  if  the  war  did 
not  exist — seeing  that  the  majority  of  peo- 
ple who  act  thus  have  been  crushed  or  tor- 
tured by  it — than  to  give  oneself  up  to  the 
monster  bound  hand  and  foot.  I  am  the  less 
strong  in  not  being  able  to  endure  the  com- 
mingling of  both  interests  and  throwing  my- 
self into  these  horrors.  I  should  be  senseless 
if  I  deemed  my  own  actions  alone  to  be 
good,  beautiful,  and  worthy.  But  I  am  judg- 
ing myself.  I  am  therefore  not  demented." 

Out  of  curiosity  she  went  one  day  to  see 
Clotilde,  still  by  way  of  test.  "To  measure 
myself,"  she  said  to  herself. 

Clotilde's  undue  self-satisfaction  made 
her  friends  really  uncomfortable,  a  discom- 
fort which  from  the  first  they  had  sought  to 
hide  or  refused  to  recognize,  which  until 
now  such  a  friend  as  Odette  had  even  re- 
fused to  admit,  but  which  to-day  she  could 
not  endure.  Clotilde,  surrounded  by  flowers, 
bathed  in  a  perfumed  atmosphere,  talked 
[  252  ] 


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only  of  a  change  she  had  made  in  the  decora- 
tion of  her  rooms,  of  her  clothes,  or  of  mat- 
ters so  utterly  foreign  to  current  events  that 
it  seemed  as  if  for  her  the  latter  had  no 
existence.  She  never  went  out,  lest  she 
should  be  obliged  to  see  or  hear  disagreeable 
things,  and  yet  never  had  she  bought  so 
many  hats  and  gowns  as  since  the  war.  On 
her  earlier  visits  Odette  had  slightly 
shrugged  her  shoulders  as  if  amused  and 
not  wholly  displeased.  By  degrees,  the  dis- 
proportion between  such  interests  and  the 
wound  with  which  the  whole  world  was 
bleeding  overmastered  her  ability  to  make 
allowances. 

Odette  reminded  her  friend  that  she  had 
not  of  late  called  upon  her  for  help,  and 
asked  if  she  had  lost  her  blind  man.  Clotilde 
was  amazingly  frank  in  her  reply: 

"My  darling,  'my  blind  man/  as  you  call 
him,  continues  to  exist  and  to  charm  my 
husband.  But  what  would  you  have  ?  It  is 
not  that  I  am  lost  to  all  sense  of  humanity, 
but  you  can  imagine  how  the  presence  of  this 
man  annoys  me.  He  cannot  see  me,  I  am 
[  253  1 


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nothing  to  him,  and  it  is  necessary  for  me 
to  please " 

"But  one  may  please  even  those  who 
don't  see  us.  One  can  try  to  amuse  these  un- 
fortunates, to  make  time  pass  pleasantly  for 
them 

"You  speak  as  if  you  possessed  some  gift 
in  which  I  am  lacking.  It  is  only  that  you 
like  them,  and  know  how  to  please 
them " 

"Oh!" 

"You  succeed  in  pleasing  them  !  This  man 
who  visits  us,  with  whom  you  took  lunch,  is 
always  asking  for  you.  He  never  so  much  as 
speaks  of  me.  And  yet  it  is  I  who  permit  him 
to  come!" 

"A  man  who  cannot  see  you  in  your  place 
at  the  head  of  the  table,  and  to  whom  you 
never  give  any  proof  that  you  are  there, 
may  naturally  forget  you." 

"You  find  it  all  right  because  he  doesn't 
forget  you.  He  dotes  upon  you,  by  what 
George  says;  he  asks  for  news  of  you,  he 
longs  to  hear  your  voice  !  He  annoys  me.  In 
fact,  child,  it  was  precisely  on  your  account, 

[  254  1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


I  admit,  that  I  was  obliged  to  turn  him 
away;  he  was  falling  in  love  with  you. 
Can  you  imagine  it  ?  You  ought  to  thank 
me!" 

"In  love  with  me!  If  that  were  true  I 
should  be  all  the  more  sorry  for  him,  poor 
man !  But  he  must  have  heard  about  me  ? 
He  knows  that  I  am  not  to  be  had  ?" 

"He  hasn't  gone  as  far  as  that;  he  only 
feels  happy  in  your  company.  When  you  are 
not  there  he  misses  you.  That  is  all." 

"Well,  where  is  the  love  in  that  ?  He  is  like 
the  wounded  men  whom  I  have  nursed;  they 
were  happy  in  my  company;  when  I  went 
away,  I  suppose  they  missed  me.  If  I  had 
concluded  from  that  that  they  were  in  love 
with  me ' 

"You  didn't  conclude  it,  on  your  part, 
but  as  for  them,  what  do  you  know  ?  Per- 
haps you  broke  their  hearts  !" 

"You  are  romantic  and  think  only  of 
love  !  Men  who  have  suffered  as  they  have, 
prefer  to  think  of  their  own  comfort,  and  of 
those  who  make  them  comfortable.  I  knew 
a  nurse  seventy  years  old  for  whom  her  pa- 

Uss  1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


tients  clamored  like  children.  Were  they  in 
love  with  her?" 

"That  proves  nothing.  A  blind  man  feels 
very  clearly  whether  the  woman  near  him 
is  one  who  charms." 

"Then  he  ought  also  to  feel  the  compas- 
sion that  he  inspires,  and  that  does  not  lead 
to  love." 

"Are  you  uncomfortable  in  the  presence 
of  a  blind  man  ?" 

"It  is  an  undefmable  emotion;  my  head 
turns.  I  lose  my  self-command." 

"You  didn't  seem  to,  here." 

"One  does  almost  involuntarily  the  thing 
that  costs  the  most,  if  one  is  determined  to 
comfort  those  whose  misfortunes  arouse 
your  emotions." 

And  they  talked  of  other  things. 

XXXIV 

UDETTE  would  no  doubt  have  forgotten 
"her"  blind  man  if  a  visit  which  Mme.  de 
Blauve  paid  her  had  not  recalled  him  to 
mind  in  the  most  unexpected  manner. 

[256] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Mme.  de  Blauve,  whose  calmness  had  al- 
ways impressed  every  one,  from  the  time 
when  she  was  living  under  the  bombardment 
of  Rheims  through  the  days  in  which  she  had 
made  the  sacrifice  of  her  husband,  her  two 
sons,  and,  one  may  say,  her  daughter,  now 
appeared  unnerved.  She  had  grown  thin;  her 
eyes  were  sunken;  she  was  evidently  suffer- 
ing. 

With  her  habitual  resolution  she  opened 
to  Odette  the  purpose  of  her  visit.  She  had 
heard  —  it  was  rumored  —  that  her  dear 
friend,  having  amply  and  worthily  over- 
passed the  period  of  her  widowhood,  was 
purposing — not  by  inclination,  but  in  order 
to  accomplish  a  great  act  of  charity — to  be- 
come the  wife  of  a  blinded  officer.  People 
were  talking  about  it.  She  herself  had  been 
extremely  moved  by  the  news,  and  all  the 
more  because  she  feared  that  she  had  in- 
curred a  certain  responsibility  in  the  matter, 
having  probably  been  one  of  the  first  to 
urge  upon  the  young  widow  the  duty  of  a 
second  marriage. 

Odette  was  amazed.  What  were  people 

[  257  1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


about  ?  Never  had  she  had  the  slightest 
idea  of  such  a  thing.  Startled  at  first,  she 
went  on,  almost  laughing,  to  hear  what 
Mme.  de  Blauve  had  to  say. 

"It  is  untrue,  you  say,"  said  Mme.  de 
Blauve;  "but,  my  little  friend,  experience 
has  taught  me  that  there  is  always  a  grain 
of  truth  at  the  bottom  of  a  wide-spread 
rumor.  Whether  good  or  bad,  such  plants  do 
not  grow  out  of  nothing." 

Odette  told  her  upon  how  slight  a  fact 
this  rumor  might  possibly  have  been  based. 
She  had  lunched  at  Clotilde  Avvogade's 
with  a  blinded  officer,  and  Clotilde  insisted 
that  she  had  pleased  him. 

"Nothing  more  would  be  needed!"  said 
Mme.  de  Blauve,  "  and  your  friend  has  prob- 
ably told  the  story  all  around.  It  must  be  so, 
for  I  have  heard  the  name  of  the  man,  the 
institution  where  he  has  been  re-educated; 
I  even  know  all  about  his  circumstances; 
he  is  a  widower  without  fortune  of  any  sort, 
and  father  of  two  little  children  about  whom 
he  feels  great  anxiety." 

"Well,"  said  Odette,  "for  my  part  I  knew 
[258] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


nothing  of  these  last  particulars,  and  this  is 
surely  a  proof  that  my  romance  has  not 
gone  very  far." 

Mme.  de  Blauve  was  lost  in  apologies. 
Nevertheless,  she  did  not  go  so  far  as  to  re- 
gret the  step  she  had  taken.  If  it  proved  to 
have  no  reason  in  the  present  case,  an  anal- 
ogous case  might  arise;  she  knew  Odette's 
susceptibility,  the  noble  impulses  of  her 
soul,  and  it  was  her  duty  to  warn  her  against 
impressions  and  impulses 

"What!"  interrupted  Odette;  "you, 
madame,  whose  daughter " 

"  Yes,  yes,  precisely  I,  'whose  daughter* — 
It  is  because  my  daughter  has  made  a  mar- 
riage— beautiful,  surely,  from  the  moral 
point  of  view,  but,  after  all,  a  marriage — 
how  shall  I  say  it — somewhat  daring,  that  I 
believe  myself  to  be  authorized  to  say  to 
you:  'My  very  dear  child,  be  careful,  re- 
flect !'  Understand  me;  I  regret  nothing  that 
has  occurred;  I  congratulate  myself  on  the 
happiness  which  my  daughter  is  assuring  to 
a  victim  of  the  war,  who  is  a  hundred  times 
deserving  of  it.  Let  me  tell  you,  by  way  of 

[  259  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


parenthesis,  that  my  daughter  has  hope  of  a 
child,  and  I  trust  that  God  will  bring  every- 
thing out  right,  although " 

"Although,"  repeated  Odette  anxiously. 

"Although — oh,  the  dear  child  is  lacking 
neither  in  love  nor  in  admiration  for  her 
husband,  who  is  a  hero;  but  our  poor  hu- 
man nature  has  strange  revulsions — I  tell 
you,  you  alone,  in  confidence;  since  my 
daughter  has  reason  for  hope  of  becoming  a 
mother,  she  feels — alas  !  it  is  frightful,  let  me 
whisper  it  to  you — she  feels  a  sort  of  appre- 
hension at  the  sight  of  her  husband,  whose 
terrible  affliction  you  know  of ! —  We  must, 
at  all  costs,  prevent  her  husband  having  the 
slightest  suspicion  of  the — temporary — feel- 
ing that  he  inspires,  and  the  young  wife  is 
obliged  to  put  the  strongest  restraint  upon 
herself  in  order  to  show  nothing.  Just  how 
far  this  incessant  constraint  is  consistent 
with  the  happy  maintenance  of  her  condi- 
tion, and  with  hope  for  its  normal  outcome, 
who  shall  say  ?  This  is  what  we  are  asking 
ourselves,  this  is  our  anxiety." 

"Oh,  dear,  dear  madame,  how  sorry  I 
am  for  you !" 

[  260  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


"You  understand  that  I  would  not  wish 
to  have  to  be  sorry  for  you,  in  my  turn,  for  a 
reason  like  this.  It  was  to  avoid  it  that  I 
came  here,  as  much  humiliated  by  my  ap- 
prehensions as  I  was  proud  on  the  day  of  the 
marriage.  You  have  no  plan  of  the  sort,  you 
tell  me,  my  child  ?  So  much  the  better ! 
But  I  have  become  excessively  apprehen- 
sive; I  am  afraid  of  characters  like  yours, 
which  may  be  inclined  to  do  too  well. 
Sometimes  a  little  pride  enters  into  the  good 
or  the  noble  things  that  we  do.  Do  you 
understand?" 


XXXV 


M] 


.ME.  DE  BLAUVE  had  taken  her  leave 
with  these  words,  and  Odette,  still  breath- 
less at  the  thought  that  there  could  be  any 
question  of  her  marrying,  a  little  ruffled, 
even,  remembered  only  the  secret  discom- 
fiture confessed  to  by  the  mother  of  the  poor 
little  bride.  It  was  one  more  cause  of  horror 
added  to  all  those  of  which  she  was  the  daily 
witness.  Her  calamity  had  doubtless  shaken 
Mme.  de  Blauve's  spirit  to  the  point  of  caus- 

[261 1 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


ing  in  her  mind  a  sort  of  hallucination  as  to 
the  fate  which  might  be  threatening  the 
young  widow.  Or  else  Mme.  de  Blauve  had 
made  the  most  of  slight  rumors  with  no  basis 
of  truth,  as  a  pretext  for  coming  to  confess 
her  own  anxiety.  Or  else — a  conjecture 
which  barely  touched  Odette's  mind — Mme. 
de  Blauve,  as  she  had  herself  intimated,  al- 
ways erring  through  pride,  felt  a  frightful 
satisfaction  in  the  dangers  with  which  she 
and  her  family  were  perpetually  menaced, 
jealously  guarding  this  bitter  eminence,  lest 
it  might  be  seized  upon  by  others !  For  one 
can  come  even  to  such  a  point. 

What  analogy  could  there  be  between  the 
marriage  of  the  little  de  Blauve  girl,  an  ig- 
norant child,  with  one  of  the  most  horribly 
mutilated  of  soldiers,  and  an  imaginary  mar- 
riage between  her,  Odette,  who  was  going  on 
to  her  thirtieth  year,  with  a  blinded  man 
who  was  not  disfigured  ?  Young  girls, 
women,  were  marrying  blinded  men  every 
day;  many  more  of  them  would  do  so,  one 
must  hope !  The  case  might  indeed  be  pe- 
culiarly delicate  for  her,  a  widow  still  in  love 
[  262  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


with  her  husband,  and  who  was  peculiarly 
sensitive  to  blindness;  but  if  the  case  ever 
occurred  it  was  she  alone  who  had  the  right 
to  judge  of  it.  No  one  knew  either  the  last- 
ing nature  of  her  grief  or  her  personal  re- 
pugnances; the  matter  in  no  slightest  de- 
gree deserved  attention. 

In  fact,  at  the  point  that  Odette  had 
reached,  she  could  imagine  no  limit  to  de- 
votion. In  the  marriages  now  in  question, 
there  was  no  mention  of  anything  that  had 
formerly  been  called  happiness;  the  only 
thought  was  of  kindliness  toward  most  de- 
serving beings  who  were  suffering  under  the 
greatest  of  misfortunes,  and  the  greater 
their  misfortune,  the  greater,  it  appeared, 
ought  to  be  the  pleasure  of  alleviating  it. 
She  did  not  approve  of  Mme.  de  Blauve,  if 
it  was  she  who  had  urged  her  daughter  to  a 
marriage  of  charity,  but  she  could  perfectly 
understand  the  daughter's  having  made  such 
a  marriage.  If  a  temporary  check  now  and 
then  occurred,  it  was  due  to  a  pathological 
condition  which  would  eventually  cease. 
She  recalled  to  mind  one  of  her  friends,  a 

[263  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


perfectly  well-balanced  girl,  married  to  a 
very  fine  man  whom  she  adored,  who  had 
taken  a  dislike  to  her  husband  during  the 
whole  period  of  her  pregnancy,  without  in 
the  least  knowing  why. 

A  few  days  later  Odette  received  a  letter 
from  Mme.  de  Calouas,  still  in  Surville,  al- 
luding to  the  prospect  of  her  marriage  to  a 
blinded  officer.  So  the  utterly  unfounded 
rumor  had  made  its  way  to  the  depths  of 
Normandy  !  And  Mme.  de  Calouas,  who  was 
wisdom  itself,  and  utterly  removed  from  any 
suggestion  that  might  have  acted  upon 
Mme.  de  Blauve,  wrote  to  her  as  Mme.  de 
Blauve  had  spoken:  "Yes,  dear  friend, 
marry;  I  have  never  concealed  from  you 
that  it  is  almost  your  duty.  But  beware  of  an 
excess  of  zeal !  Take  care  not  to  undertake 
more  than  a  woman  of  your  temperament, 
brought  up  as  you  have  been,  attached  to  a 
beloved  memory  as  you  still  are,  will  be  able 
to  endure.  Remember  that  many  of  us  can 
be  heroic  for  a  few  seconds,  a  few  hours,  a 
few  days,  but  that  is  very  different  from  a 
whole  lifetime." 

[264] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Odette  smiled,  not  only  at  the  thought  of 
what  people  were  thinking  of  her,  but  at  the 
solicitude  which  they  expressed  for  her,  and 
that  sort  of  obsession  for  heroic  acts  which 
every  one  seemed  to  cherish.  Odette  had 
not  the  slightest  intention  of  performing  a 
heroic  act.  Nothing  in  her  character  had  ever 
inclined  her  in  that  direction.  Her  heart  was 
made  for  loving.  She  loved,  she  was  sure  that 
she  loved.  The  one  whom  she  loved  was  her 
husband — her  Jean.  She  could  ill  analyze 
the  character  of  the  tenderness  which  at  the 
same  time  she  felt  for  every  suffering  crea- 
ture on  earth.  And  that  was  all.  What  would 
they  have  of  her  ? 


XXXVI 


N: 


EVERTHELESS  she  continued  to  be 
disturbed  by  the  strange  rumor  which  had 
been  set  afloat,  which  was  still  afloat,  and 
she  promised  herself  to  speak  about  it  to 
Clotilde,  who  without  doubt  had  been  the 
cause  of  its  diffusion. 
On  drawing  near  to  the  house  in  which 

[265  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


Clotilde  lived,  she  met  Lieutenant  Avvo- 
gade  guiding  his  blinded  man  by  the  arm. 
She  had  not  so  much  as  thought  of  avoid- 
ing such  an  encounter. 

When  the  blind  man  recognized  Odette's 
voice  his  whole  face  was  transfigured.  He 
turned  pale;  he  hardly  had  courage  to  speak. 
But  she  felt  the  effort  with  which  his  closed 
eyelids  were  directed  toward  the  point  in 
space  from  which  her  voice  had  come;  her 
perfume  had  been  wafted  to  him.  This 
blinded  man  was  looking  at  her,  was  seeing 
her  in  his  imagination;  perhaps  he  was  see- 
ing her  much  more  beautiful,  more  alluring, 
than  he  had  dreamed !  He  had  been  dis- 
turbed because  opportunities  to  be  with  her 
had  no  longer  been  afforded  him,  and  he  did 
not  know  that  it  was  not  she  herself  who 
had  prevented  them.  But  an  inward  instinct, 
stronger  than  he  had  yet  known,  filled  him 
with  ecstasy  in  that  moment  of  the  young 
woman's  presence.  He  inhaled  her  like  a 
flower,  he  listened  to  her,  was  saturated  with 
her.  Believing  himself  to  be  behind  the  veil 
which  hid  the  daylight  from  him,  as  behind 
a  screen,  he  neglected  to  keep  a  watch  on 
[  266  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


himself,  to  impose  constraint  upon  himself. 
His  emotion  was  evident  to  those  who  saw 
him,  and  the  agitation  of  a  man  so  much  to 
be  pitied  impressed  her  profoundly. 

Odette  told  him  that  she  had  learned  that 
he  had  two  little  children.  Then  the  blinded 
man  extended  his  hand  to  her;  his  throat 
contracted;  he  could  not  utter  a  word. 
Without  hesitation  Odette  took  the  hand  of 
this  man,  so  good-hearted  and  so  wretched, 
and  let  her  own  be  enfolded  in  his.  Not  a 
word  had  been  added  to  those  alluding  to 
the  children,  yet  she  felt  that  she  had  never 
heard  from  human  lips  such  an  expression  of 
gratitude. 


They  were  there,  under  the  trees  of  the 
Square  of  the  United  States,  one  of  the 
beauty  spots  of  opulent,  worldly  Paris, 
where  so  many  conventional  words  and  ac- 
tions must  have  been  exchanged;  and  this 
agitated  silence,  those  clasped  hands,  result 
of  the  universal  woe,  seemed  to  embody  as 
in  marble  the  symbol  of  a  new  beauty  which 
effaced  all  that  had  before  been  known. 
[267] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


As  the  blind  man  made  a  motion  to  re- 
linquish her  hand,  Odette  said : 

" Au  revoir,  messieurs";  and  left  them. 
The  blind  man  remained  motionless,  either 
because  he  could  not  think  it  possible  that 
she  should  go,  or  because  he  waited  for  his 
friend,  who  hesitated  to  urge  him  to  leave 

the  place. 

* 

*  * 

Odette  did  not  go  up  to  Clotilde,  even  at 
the  risk  of  permitting  her  lack  of  protesta- 
tion to  be  accepted  as  acquiescence.  She  felt 
herself  incapable  of  talking  with  any  one 
whose  heart  was  not  overflowing.  She  did 
not  disdain  the  sight  of  her  flowers,  her  pre- 
occupation with  personal  pleasures;  she 
would  despise  nothing,  these  were  tastes 
which  inspired  her  rather  with  pity.  Toward 
those  who  have  greatly  suffered  it  was  not 
pity  that  she  felt,  but  attraction;  an  irre- 
sistible attraction. 

# 

*  * 

She  was  soon  joined  by  one  who  greeted 
her.  It  was  La  Villaumer,  returning  from  a 
[  268  ] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


visit  to  a  sick  man  in  the  Rue  Bizet.  He 
turned  toward  the  two  men  who  were  going 
away  and  asked  Odette: 

"Then  it  is  true  ?  They  told  me " 

"Only  one  single  thing  is  true,"  said 
Odette,  "and  that  is  that  they  told  you." 

"There  is  only  one  single  thing  true,"  re- 
plied La  Villaumer,  "and  that  is  that  you 
feel  as  imperative  a  need  to  do  good,  as 
most  poor  mortals  of  good  being  done  to 
them.  If  I  had  not  seen- — I  should  say  to 
you,  as  others  will  say  to  you:  'My  friend, 
take  care,  keep  yourself  in  hand ! '  But  I 
have  just  seen  the  face  of  this  man  who  is 
deprived  of  light,  and  who  perhaps  feels  the 
lack  of  you  more  than  of  the  beauty  of  the 
light,  and  I  tremble —  It  seems  to  me  that  I 
see  you,  my  poor  dear  friend,  reaching  the 
last  stage  of  an  evolution  which  I  have 
watched  as  if  it  had  been  my  own.  Many  will 
look  upon  this  acme  of  your  self-sacrifice  as 
an  immolation.  But  I  recall  to  mind  the 
words  that  I  have  so  often  spoken  to  my- 
self: 'You  no  longer  Count! 'The  individ- 
ual is  dead —  Provisionally,  but  for  a  time 

[269] 


YOU  NO  LONGER  COUNT 


which  we  cannot  estimate,  the  individual  is 
dead —  In  fact,  you  yourself  have  perceived 
that  you  no  longer  have  any  rights,  not  even 
the  right  to  mourn  your  unending  grief. 
The  moment  has  come  to  mourn  more 
largely,  more  grandly,  with  the  only  grief 
that  can  save  a  soul  like  yours.  The  only 
hope  of  a  resurrection  lies  in  giving  oneself  to 
the  common  need,  and  losing  oneself  in  it 
with  love." 


[  270  ] 


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